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176   Park   Row,   New  York 

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WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH 
NEW  YORK? 


A  Story  of  the  Waste  of  Millions 


Told  by 
JOHN  A.  HENNESSY 


Published  by 
THE  O'CONNELL  PRESS 
176  Park  Row,  New  York  City 


■Conyright.  1916, 
by 

JoHN  A.  Hennessy 


INTRODUCTION 


3 


A  BIT  OF  INTRODUCTION. 

This  book  is  not  written  to  expose  all  the  evils  of  State 
government,  but  to  uncover  a  few.  Its  main  purpose  is  to 
show  how  with  small  effort  several  millions  of  dollars  may 
be  saved  the  taxpayers  each  year  and  with  a  rising  standard 
of  efficiency.  Several  important  departments  are  left  un- 
touched, so  that  concrete  abuses  easy  of  reach  may  be 
accurately  presented  for  the  information  of  those  ready  to  do 
what  they  can  in  having  the  business  of  the  State  run  on  lines 
nearly  parallel  with  the  successful  trade  achievements  of 
individuals. 

The  Author  thinks  it  wiser  to  take  six  or  seven  State  de- 
partments and  point  out  what  is  wrong  than  to  go  into  every 
avenue  of  the  State's  activities  and  pile  up  a  mass  of  material 
which,  for  the  time  at  least,  might  miss  legislative  scrutiny 
and  relief.  The  lines  of  reform  will  surely  broaden  into  other 
channels  if  what  is  put  down  in  these  pages  forces  business 
changes  in  certain  departments. 

The  taxpayers  of  New  York  City  have  a  vital  interest  in 
what  is  here  written.  They  escaped  a  direct  tax  this  year,  but 
probably  for  the  last  time  in  many  years  to  come  unless  their 
civic  leaders  set  out  resolutely  now  to  put  in  force  working 
methods  in  government  which  vdll  decrease  expenses, 
create  revenue  and  upbuild  the  functions  of  the  State.  As 
these  pages  unfold  the  seriousness  of  the  case  will  appeal  to 
all.  Failure  to  bring  about  reform  by  rapid  stages  will  not 
only  continue  the  misuse  of  public  money,  but  inevitably  force 
the  State  budget  to  an  increase  of  $20,000,000  in  the  next  five 
years. 

The  abuses,  many  of  them  grave,  in  State  institutions, 
have  no  place  in  this  volume,  interesting  as  they  would  be 
to  good  citizens.  The  interlacing  partnership  between  con- 
tractors and  State  officials  does  not  come  within  the  province 
of  this  book.  The  activities  of  men  who  have  things  big  and 
little  to  sell  at  prices  to  suit  the  moral  atmosphere  in  State 
departments  will  not  be  related ;  neither  g^aft  nor  blackmail ; 


4       WHATS^THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


neither  shady  work  against  the  State  Treasury  nor  the  plastic 
attitude  of  men  in  office  will  be  discussed.  If  there  be  any 
hint  of  these  things  it  will  be  only  by  indirection  and  to  garb 
some  special  point  with  illustrative  meaning. 

The  chief  purpose  is  to  cut  away  administrative  abuses,  stop 
useless  waste  of  money  and  bring  about  efficiency  that  will 
count  both  in  the  development  of  the  State  and  the  protection 
of  the  Treasury.  This  book  will  deal  concretely  with  the 
expenditures  and  the  management  of  State  printing,  State 
Highways,  State  Hospitals,  State  Prisons,  charitable  institu- 
tions, the  Departments  of  Agriculture  and  of  Conservation. 
Of  necessity,  the  proper  treatment  of  these  subjects,  showing 
looseness  and  other  faults  in  government,  will  bring  in  some 
co-related  subjects,  such  as  the  sinking  funds,  bond  issues  and 
direct  taxes,  but  the  special  treatment  of  State  taxation  has  no 
place  here  and  is  indeed  worthy  of  deep  consideration  apart 
from  the  aims  of  this  volume. 

Business  control  of  our  State  institutions  is  a  very  big 
question  for  all  who  pay  the  bills.  When  we  find  ourselves 
near  the  $10,000,000  a  year  mark  for  maintenance  alone  in  the 
hospitals  for  the  insane  and  other  State  charitable  homes,  it 
is  a  duty  to  look  closely  into  the  methods  in  use,  and  to  justify 
proper  criticism  of  wasteful  expenditures  by  presenting  the 
facts  from  the  official  records. 

The  extravagances  of  government  so  plainly  established 
in  this  volume  are  only  a  part  of  our  troubles.  The  failure 
of  government  to  take  advantage  of  revenue-supplying  sources, 
of  benefit  to  the  taxpayer  and  to  the  general  development  of 
the  State,  is  another  factor  of  importance  when  we  find  the 
State  budget  increasing,  in  the  period  from  1905  to  1916, 
from  $24,642,721  to  $58,659,421,  exclusive  of  all  bond  issues  for 
canals,  highways  and  other  improvements. 

The  figures  established  in  this  book  relating  to  New  York 
are  reported  by  the  institutions  and  verified  by  the  officials 
in  Albany.  They  account  for  every  appropriation,  so  that 
they  tally  to  the  correct  point,  and  may  be  accepted  as  conclu- 
sive of  extraordinary  lack  of  business  management  in  many 
of  the  State  departments.  That  the  New  York  State  budget 
can,  with  efficient  reorganization,  be  cut  within  a  year  by 


INTRODUCTION 


5 


$5,000,000,  and  within  three  years  by  from  $7,000,000  to 
$8,000,000,  even  with  increased  activities,  cannot  be  success- 
fully questioned;  nor  will  it  be  accurately  denied  that  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  present  system  will  lead  us,  not  later  than 
191 7.  to  a  direct  tax  which  will  remain  with  us  year  by  year 
in  ever-growing  volume. 

In  these  pages  will  be  found  some  personal  views  of  the 
Author  which  may  not  be  at  all  necessary  to  a  recital  of  gov- 
ernmental conditions,  but  these  views  do  not  over-run  those 
chapters  which  call  for  precise  treatment  of  the  subjects 
described.  The  aim  is  to  be  both  non-partisan  and  non- 
political,  but  at  times  it  is  necessary  to  paint  with  some  flavor 
incidents  v/hich  must  appeal  to  the  just  criticism  or  the  lighter 
views  of  those  most  interested.  Should  the  publication  of  this 
volume  do  nothing  more  than  bring  about  changed  conditions 
for  good  in  certain  specified  departments,  several  millions  a 
year  will  be  saved,  not  to  speak  of  business-like  progress  in 
government. 


> 


6       WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


OUR  STEADILY  RISING  DEBT. 

Story  of  How  the  State  Debt  Has  Climbed  More  Than  $200,- 
000,000  in  Twenty  Years  Told  in  the  Official  Figures- 
More  than  $100,000,000  in  Last  Five  Years. 

1895—  In  this  year  the  State  debt  was  only   $660,  old 

bonds  never  offered  for  redemption. 

1896—  Beginning  of  New  Canal  and  Adirondack  Park  debt.  $2,320,660 


1897—   5,765,660 

1898—    9,340,660 

189a— Including  $900,000  Spanish  war  debt    10,185,660 

1900—    10,130,660 

1901—    10,075,660 

1902—   9,920,660 

1903—   9.665,660 

1904—  !   9,410,660 

1905—  End  of  the  Spanish  war  debt    11,155,660 

1906—    10,630,6*^0 

1907—  Beginning  of  the  Highway  Bond  debt    17,290.660 

1908—    26,230,660 

1909—  $10,000,000  Canal  and  $5,000,000  Highway  bonds....  41,230,660 

1910—  $11,000,000  Canal  and  $5,000,000  Highway  bonds....  57,230,660 

1911—  First  issue  of  Palisade  Park  bonds,  $2,500,000   79,730,660 

1912 —  First  issue  of  Saratoga  Reservation  bonds,  $630,000; 

the  rest  Canal  and  Highway  bond  issues   109,702,660 

1913—  $19,000,000  Canals  and  $8,000,000  Highways  135,355,660 

1 9 14_$1 1,000,000  Canals  and  $13,000,000  Highways  159,260,660 

1915—  $17,000,000  Canals  and  $10,000,000  Highways  186,400,660 

1916—  $17,000,000  Canals  and  $10,000,000  Highways  211,400,660 


In  addition  to  this  debt  there  is  yet  to  be  issued  $47,000,000 
of  Canal  and  of  Highway  bonds  authorized  by  the  people 
which  will  be  done  with  little  delay,  so  that  the  entire  bonded 
debt  of  the  State  soon  will  be  $258,400,000,  against  which 
there  is  in  the  sinking  fund  $48,897,080.89.  So  we  may  well 
call  ourselves  beyond  the  $200,000,000  mark  in  net  debt. 


HOW  STATE  EXPENDITURES  HAVE  CLIMBED  7 


HOW  STATE  EXPENDITURES  HAVE  CLIMBED. 

This  chart  shows  how  the  Treasury  Department  pay- 
ments compare  with  the  growth  of  the  State's  assessed  valua- 
tion of  real  property  and  its  population  from  1901  to  1915, 
inclusive. 


Increase  in  the  expenditures  for  all  purposes 
in  1915  over  1901  is  286  per  cent.  In  1901  the 
total  was  $24,597,841;  in  1915  the  outlay  was 
$94,902,371. 


'Increase  in  the  assessed  valuation  of  Real 
Estate  in  New  York  State  1915  compared 
with  1901  is  119  per  cent. 


Increase  in  population  1915  over  1901  was 
34.5  per  cent. 


8       WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


TERMS  OF  OFFICE. 

The  basic  trouble  with  the  State  Government  is  the  short 
terms  of  office  by  men  at  the  top  in  the  big  departments.  A 
Superintendent  of  Prisons  is  hardly  in  office  before  he  is  out. 
The  Conservation  Commissioner  is  learning  something  of  con- 
structive value  for  the  people  when  he  and  his  immediate 
staff  are  projected  into  private  life.  In  six  years  there  have 
been  three  complete  changes  in  the  Highway  and  Public 
Works  Departments,  bringing  chaos  in  the  spending  of  more 
than  $150,000,000  in  that  period  on  the  roads  and  canals.  The 
Agricultural  Department  has  been  made  the  football  of  poli- 
tics. No  sane  man  would  run  a  $60,000,000  a  year  business 
this  way,  yet  the  people  who  pay  and  get  60  per  cent,  of  service 
for  this  money  look  on  placidly  while  good  men  go  out  of 
the  public  service  and  raw  recruits  come  in. 

Reformation  of  the  State's  business  from  the  top  down  is 
the  most  vital  work  that  can  be  done  by  those  good  citizens 
whose  voice  is  heard  in  the  City  of  New  York  through  th€ 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  The  Merchants'  Association,  The  City 
Club,  and  other  civic  agencies.  Were  they  to  join  with  similar 
bodies  throughout  the  State,  reform  in  tenure  of  office  would 
come,  an  abler  class  of  men  would  seek  office,  and  the  standard 
of  efficiency  would  steadily  rise.  Only  the  honest  extension  of 
civil  service  can  bring  this  about.  This  policy  is  as  essential 
to  economy  and  development  as  sunshine  and  moisture  to  the 
growth  of  a  forest.  Failure  to  bring  this  about  is  indictment 
of  our  desire  and  ability  to  have  representative  government. 

The  head  of  a  State  department  is  actually  in  charge  of  a 
business  running  from  $1,000,000  to  $10,000,000  a  year  in  out- 
lay. His  term  of  office  ought  not  to  be  less  than  six  years,  and 
every  man  under  him  ought  to  be  in  the  civil  list.  These  men,  of 
course,  can  be  retired  for  cause,  but  as  their  successors  would 
come  from  an  eligible  list,  there  would  be  no  temptation  to 
get  rid  of  a  useful  man.  The  eligible  lists  for  the  deputies 
would  rise  to  a  high  standard  because  of  the  ample  salaries 
and  life  term  of  office  on  good  behavior.  The  examinations  in 
the  Agricultural  Service,  for  instance,  would  get  men  skilled 
in  farming  in  all  its  branches,  with  special  knov/ledge  of 


TERMS  OF  OFFICE 


9 


forestry,  water  courses  and  soils.  A  similar  standard  would 
•come  in  other  branches  of  the  government  and  we  should  not 
have,  as  now,  men  of  hobbled  minds,  whose  chief  vocation  is 
to  be  of  political  value  to  the  boss  who  holds  the  whip,  and  to 
be  of  only  fugitive  service  to  the  State. 

This  reform  is  all  the  more  earnestly  to  be  desired  when 
we  stop  to  think  that  New  York  State  is  only  in  its  develop- 
ment in  almost  every  branch  of  Government,  except  the 
Departments  of  Banks,  Insurance,  Law,  and  Excise,  and  that 
decent  men  of  trained  minds  are  as  essential  to  the  State  as 
they  are  to  the  man  in  private  business.  That  our  shell  fish- 
eries, for  instance,  have  been  in  the  hands  of  three  different 
men  in  three  years  is  a  terrific  indictment  of  the  way  business 
is  done.  The  first  two  incumbents  were  low-grade  politicians. 
The  present  holder  of  the  job  is  unknown  to  me.  The  place  of 
Shell  Fish  Commissioner  should  be  in  the  civil  service  and  no 
man  should  be  eligible  for  examination  who  had  not  engaged 
in  the  raising  of  lobsters,  oysters,  clams  and  scallops.  The 
value  of  the  shell  fisheries  on  the  Long  Island  coast  could  be 
increased  by  millions  of  dollars,  but  this  never  will  be  done 
while  the  job  of  Shell  Fish  Commissioner  is  a  prize  of  politics, 
the  incurrfbent  going  out  at  every  turn  of  the  political  wheel 
on  Long  Island. 

No  matter  how  able  the  next  Governor  and  his  successor  may 
be,  the  work  of  the  State  will  lag  and,  in  many  important  places, 
fall  behind  by  changing  the  deputies  in  the  great  departments. 
The  Highway  Division,  for  instance,  has  had  three  different 
secretaries  in  three  years,  and  three  separate  sets  of  deputies 
in  the  same  period.  The  present  secretary,  Mr.  I.  J. 
Morris,  is  the  ablest  and  best  equipped  man  who  ever  held 
the  place.  He  saves  his  salary  of  $5,000  fifty  times  over  for 
the  State,  but  out  the  door  he  will  go  next  year  for  some 
scallawag  type  of  Democrat  should  the  Republicans  lose  the 
coming  campaign.  Even  the  auditor  of  the  Highway  Depart- 
ment, Mr.  Seph.  D.  Gilbert,  who  has  in  his  mind — and  an  able 
mind  he  has — every  detail  of  expenditure,  is  subject  to  re- 
moval at  will.  One  of  the  first  great  steps  in  efficient  govern- 
ment will  come  when  these  classes  of  men  are  firmly  estab- 
lished in  the  civil  list  and  their  successors  taken  therefrom. 


10      WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


THE  CIVIL  SERVICE. 

Failure  to  protect  employees  in  the  past  by  decent  Civil 
Service  regulations  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  lack  of 
efficiency  so  plain  in  many  branches  of  State  government. 
The  men  at  the  top  in  exempt  positions,  that  is  most  of  them, 
feel  their  duty  is  to  the  special  political  interests  they  repre- 
sent and  not  to  the  State. 

They  take  the  medium  line  between  plain  virtue  and  open 
jobbery,  letting  in  political  pull,  or  indolence  by  employees, 
on  the  side  lines  of  the  day's  work.  It  never  crosses  their 
minds  that  their  relation  to  the  business  of  the  State  ought 
to  be  the  same  as  their  relations  to  the  business  of  a  private 
employer.  Not  themselves  dishonest,  their  accession  to 
authority  in  a  public  position  changes  the  moral  atmosphere 
they  would  carry  with  them  if  not  employed  by  the  State,  and 
so  they  permit  the  doing  or  the  non-doing  of  things  which 
are  a  discredit  to  government  and  a  sore  on  the  taxpaying 
public. 

The  complete  extension  of  Civil  Service  is  the  big  thing 
that  will  bring  about  specific  reform  in  general  State  affairs. 
It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  Governor  Whitman's  administra- 
tion that,  despite  many  political  difficulties  confronting  him, 
where  a  bit  of  patronage  would  count  in  the  party  milestones 
of  a  county,  he  has  stood  resolutely  behind  his  very  progres- 
sive Civil  Service  Commission.  In  this  respect,  Governor 
Whitman  has  done  more  good  for  the  betterment  of  govern- 
ment than  any  man  in  his  position  since  the  day  of  Colonel 
Roosevelt.  He  has  begun  the  real  emancipation  of  State 
employees,  and  soon  they  will  all  begin  to  see  they  are  not 
working  for  cross-roads  politicians,  but  for  a  corporate  organ- 
ization of  10,000,000  persons,  of  which  they  are  a  paid  part. 
They  are  being  surely  released  from  control  of  political 
organization,  which  means  a  jump  in  efficiency  and  in  the 
personal  need  of  that  morality  required  by  the  State  of  its 
citizens. 

The  organization  method  is  to  win  fealty  by  paying  State 
money  to  a  man  of  flexible  conscience  and,  having  put  him  in 
office,  to  use  that  flexibility  for  personal  adventures  with  the 


THE  CIVIL  SERVICE 


11 


Treasury.  It  is  this  sort  of  political  larceny  that  suggested  to 
Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  the  Democratic  boss  of  Buffalo,  then  and 
now,  that  he  could  plant  a  receptive  friend  upon  the  State 
payroll  and  there  use  him  in  his  most  immediate  private  busi- 
ness, which  was  the  building  of  a  fraudulent  State  road  in  Erie 
County.  It  was  this  partnership  between  politics  and  crime 
that  controlled  Mr.  Baird,  the  Democratic  boss  of  Mont- 
gomery County,  in  speculating  with  the  virtue  of  a  State 
official  and  political  payroll  friend,  that  he,  too,  might  build  a 
fraudulent  road  in  his  own  county,  getting  a  special  money 
allowance  for  the  road's  upstanding  virtue,  but  since  that  time 
pleading  guilty  to  diverting  the  State's  money  to  his  own 
pocketbook.  It  was  this  comradicity  of  feeling  which  put 
an  employee  upon  the  Highway  payroll  who  helped  a  few 
Democrats  with  a  Republican  partner  to  take  the  State's 
money  with  larcenous  intent  on  the  Lake  George-Bolton 
State  Highway;  this  money  is,  in  part,  now  back  in  the  State 
Treasury;  it  was  this  non-civil  service  method  of  attaching  a 
man  to  an  unbound  conscience  that  put  Fogarty,  of  Long 
Island  City,  in  jail  because  of  his  desire  to  let  Bart  Dunn,  a 
Tammany  Hall  leader,  unlock  the  State  Treasury  by  means 
not  recognized  in  law;  it  was  this  plan  that  let  Democratic 
gentlemen  cheat  the  State  on  the  Glens  Falls-Lake  George 
Highway,  and  as  this  is  written  the  news  comes  that  a  jury 
has  found  against  them  for  $14,754,  it  being  one  of  many 
suits  begun  on  proof  found  by  the  author  of  this  volume;  it 
was  this  defiance  of  Civil  Service  that  caused  Whyard,  the 
Democratic  boss  of  Rockland,  to  pretend  to  build  a  road  and 
take  the  State's  money,  for  which  he  has  been  convicted.  He 
managed  to  have  a  political  friend  assigned  by  the  State  to 
check  up  the  work.  That  poor  fellow,  now  convicted,  served 
Whyard,  but  won  the  penalty  for  getting  an  exempt  job — 
which  is  guilty  subservience  to  his  master. 

Many  other  instances  could  be  recited,  but  the  point  is 
made  good,  I  think,  that  when  you  separate  the  average 
employee  from  political  control,  he  will  go  right  if  he  be 
honest;  and  that  when  you  don't  separate  him  from  that 
control  he  may  go  wrong,  disregarding  his  plain  duty,  to  find 


12      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


favor  with  his  most  immediate  sponsor  in  the  public  power 
of  the  day. 

The  work  of  the  present  State  Civil  Service  Commission  is 
sure  to  tell  in  the  days  to  come,  and  must  always  be  to 
Governor  Whitman  one  of  the  elements  in  his  administration 
not  necessary  to  defend. 

In  this  Civil  Service  Reform  Mr.  Whitman  is  reaching 
toward  the  highest  efficiency  in  government,  but  of  course  has 
still  a  long  way  to  go.  In  retaining  Mr.  Lewis  F.  Pilcher,  the 
State  Architect,  Democrat,  the  Governor  for  once  at  least  has 
risen  above  party  demands  and  has  kept  in  office  a  man  of  great 
ability,  who  has  stood  between  the  people  and  the  politicians 
and  steadily  protected  the  State  from  raids  on  its  treasury. 
With  a  few  more  Pilchers  we  could  have  a  smaller  tax  budget. 


NON-EFFICIENCY  IN  STATE 


THE  WAYS   OF  OUR  GOVERNORS. 

The  thing  which  New  York  needs  most,  and  which  the 
voters  never  think  of  giving  it,  is  a  business  Governor — a  man 
who  will  regard  it  as  his  plain  duty  to  oversee  all  the  State 
institutions  and  keep  them  up  to  date  in  efficiency.  The  duties 
of  a  Governor  in  this  State  in  recent  years  have  been,  first,  to 
quarrel  with  the  political  bosses  who  discovered  and  adopted 
him ;  second,  to  aspire  to  the  Presidency ;  third,  to  visit  county 
fairs,  church  fairs,  and  attend  banquets ;  fourth,  to  neglect  the 
growth  of  the  State's  business  and  let  departments  run  auto- 
matically. A  real  Governor  would  be  the  people's  business  man 
in  Albany,  keeping  in  his  head  firmly  his  obligations  to  the 
State,  visiting  all  institutions,  studying  the  payrolls,  calling  his 
heads  of  departments  together,  enforcing  efficiency  as  well  as 
economy,  and  bringing  the  work  of  the  State  abreast  of  our 
steadily  rising  civilization. 

Our  last  business  governor  was  B.  B.  Odell,  Jr.,  of  New- 
burg,  Orange  County.  The  percentage  of  politics  in  his  mind 
caused  a  little  mildew  to  gather  in  certain  departments,  not 
unknown,  perhaps,  to  this  alert  and  able  man,  but  permitted 
so  thg^  the  orderly  processes  of  Republican  caucuses  might 
not  be  jarred  by  too  much  civic  virtue.  Mr.  Odell  knew  the 
State  down  to  its  toes.  If  his  administration  lacked  vigor,  vir- 
tue, or  economy  in  spots,  the  facts  were  not  unknown  to  him. 
He  lived  in  political  times  which  demanded  some  elasticity  in 
mcrals.  Considering  the  infirmities  of  his  day,  Odell  builded 
well  and,  in  the  more  chastened  atmosphere  of  these  present 
days,  would  rank  as  a  great  governor.  But  Odell  was  a  busi- 
ness man  who  knew  his  State.  He  promoted  many  reforms 
both  in  management  and  in  revenue  raising.  He  gave  to  the 
politicians  the  least  he  could  and  won  from  them  for  the  State 
much  in  merit  that  survives  to-day. 

Since  his  time  we  have  had  a  great  intellectual  in  Mr. 
Hughes,  who  knew  less  of  the  State  and  accomplished  less  than 
any  man  since  the  days  of  Cornell.  Advised  by  certain  editors, 
he  spent  most  of  his  time  in  attempting  to  attain  the  then 
impossible,  and  left  his  party  in  such  a  wreck  that  the  practi- 
cally unknown  and  colorless  Dix  led  the  Democrats  to  vie- 


14      WHATS  TBE  matter  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


tory.  These  editors  got  him  in  a  great  state  of  mind  on  the 
so-called  Australian  ballot,  direct  primaries  and  other  electoral 
reforms.  They  flashed  aureoles  all  about  him  as  he  fought  the 
party  leaders.  He  got  more  halos  when  he  vetoed  the  full 
crew  bill,  as  if  any  honest  man  would  not  have  done  it  at  that 
time.  In  all  this  turmoil  the  land  sharks  got  in  their  work 
well.  Two  impossible  prison  sites  and  one  fake  rifle  range  were 
among  the  choice  bits  put  over.  The  asphalt  men  fastened 
themselves  upon  the  new  Highway  Department  and  began 
their  famous  clean-up.  It  was  in  these  days  of  high  intellec- 
tuals that  the  famous  State  printing  law  was  enacted,  and 
sandstone  granite  owned  by  Republicans  of  high  renown  struck 
the  fancy  of  State  Architects.  Gravel  beds  not  in  possession 
of  Democrats  developed  a  usefulness  in  public  works  sufficient 
to  enrich  all  concerned.  Thus,  while  the  Governor  was 
pursuing  his  altruistic  studies  in  statesmanship,  the  business 
instincts  of  his  party's  most  active  agents  were  working  over- 
time in  the  great  shadow  of  the  virtuous  garb  worn  by  the 
Chief  Executive.  Not  even  the  spectacle  of  convicts  sleeping 
in  cots  in  the  chapels  of  State  prisons  could  get  Mr.  Hughes 
down  to  a  view  of  the  State's  real  business,  but  he  did  have 
a  ready  ear  for  some  good  women  who  wanted  cottage  colonies 
for  all  sorts  of  unfortunate  people,  and  he  started  that  tide 
of  reform  which  has  committed  the  State  to  an  ever-increasing 
per  capita  cost  in  institutional  management. 

But  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  Hughes  administration, 
it  had  an  air  of  respectability,  and  even  of  solidity.  The 
charm  of  his  great  success  as  an  investigator  had  made  him 
a  big  figure,  apart  from  his  undoubted  gifts  as  a  lawyer.  He 
sought  for  reforms  in  the  law,  demanded  by  one  set  of  gen- 
tlemen or  another,  while  the  general  administration  of  the 
State  went  to  pot.  The  literary  acclaim  of  him  grew.  He  had 
houdenized  the  editorial  mind.  The  raw  work  on  the  canals 
was  passed  by  in  the  adulation  for  the  public  service  bills.  The 
editorial  gentlemen  who  follow  the  god  of  fame  and  light  the 
path  of  his  virtues,  found  new  praise  every  day  for  the 
Governor.  This  short  and  unfinished  story  of  the  Hughes 
administration  is  interjected  here  to  point  out  that  striving 
by  a  governor  for  good  laws,  or  allegedly  good  laws,  is  well 


THE  WAYS  OF  OUR  GOVERNORS 


15 


•enough  in  its  way  if  it  doesn't  interfere  with  the  real  business 
of  the  State,  which  is  largely  to  conserve  the  public  money, 
broaden  the  achievements  of  the  administrative  side  and  keep 
the  constructive  departments  abreast  of  the  hour.  Mr.  Hughes 
was  distinctly  not  a  business  governor,  and  for  the  first  time 
in  years  nearly  every  department  was  on  the  down  grade  when 
Governor  Dix  and  his  merry  men  came  into  office.  That  was 
the  real  beginning  of  the  chaos  and  disorganiation,  with  result- 
ant waste  and  graft,  which  continued  until  Mr.  Whitman  had 
a  good  grasp  on  the  general  situation. 


16      WHAT^  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


THE  MONEY  SPIGOT  WIDE  OPEN. 

Democratic  "Economy"  Told  in  Figures  Which  Must  Startle 
the  Taxpayer— The  Party  "Leaders"  Who  Did  This  Now 
Ask  to  Be  Returned  to  Power. 

The  story  of  what  happened  in  the  administrative  depart- 
ments of  government  from  the  time  Dix  came  in  on  January 
I,  igii,  to  the  time  Glynn  went  out  on  January  i,  1915. 
These  Were  the  first  and  the  last  years  of  Democratic  control 
since  January  i,  1895.  The  party  came  into  power  on  a  plat- 
form assailing  Republican  extravagance  and  pledging  the 
severest  economy. 


*Total  employees,  Jan.  1,  1911    4,498 

*Total  employees,  Jan.  1,  1915    6,364 

Increase  in  four  years    41% 


Average  salary,  Jan.  1,  1911    $1,473 

Average  salary,  Jan.  1,  1915    1,848 

Average  increase    25% 


Salaries,  Jan.  1,  1911   s  $6,266,678 

Salaries,  Jan.  1,  1915   11,764,267 

Increase  in  four  years   87.78% 


Increase   in   all   taxable   wealth   in  four 

years,   1911-1915    3.3% 

Increase  in  population    4.8% 


*Thcse  figures  are  exclusive  of  the  "laborers"  employed  who,  at  timet,  were 
as   thick   as   raindrops   in   a  thunderstorm. 


THE  WAYS  OF  OUR  GOVERNORS 


17 


AS  DIX  CAME  IN. 

The  Democrats  who  came  in  with  Governor  Dix  found  no 
fallow  pastures.  The  ground  had  been  well  tilled  for  their 
operations.  A  new  type  of  legislator  came  in,  too.  In  the 
days  of  Raines,  Coggeshall,  McCarren,  Nixon  and  Grady,  the 
State  Treasury  was  as  well  protected  as  the  counting  house 
of  J.  P.  Morgan.  These  men  did  not  have  much  respect  for 
the  feelings  of  capitalists,  but  there  was  a  final  amity  of 
interest  unless  two  rival  corporations  were  trying  to  get  the 
same  thing.  In  such  times  a  Northern  Pacific  corner  in  legis- 
lative votes  took  place,  but  under  a  cover  of  secrecy  that  never 
disturbed  the  agile  minds  of  Albany  correspondents  beyond 
the  shadowy  state  of  conjecture.  When  it  came  to  taking 
money  from  the  State  Treasury,  Raines  and  his  kind  were 
bulldogs  of  virtue.  They  kept  the  expenditures  down  and 
knew  no  favorites.  In  the  last  term  of  Governor  Hughes,  the 
commercial  crowd  came  into  the  legislature  and  took  the 
State  for  its  prey.  The  members  had  developed  team  work 
with  the  coming  of  Dix.  They  speedily  reversed  the  policy 
of  Raines,  Coggeshall  and  Nixon.  They  dug  deep  into  the 
vitals  of  tl^e  State.  They  went  into  partnership  with  the  heads 
of  departments.  Land  speculators  had  fine  bridges  built  over 
streams  at  State  expense.  The  hungry  bosses  began  exploit- 
ing property  for  all  sorts  of  institutional  uses,  with  a  few 
stone  quarries  in  reserve  for  ulterior  business  purposes.  The 
payrolls  were  padded  at  the  average  rate  of  $200,000  a  month. 
This  brood  of  Democrats  coming  in  with  Dix  could  have 
taught  refined  larceny  to  envious  convicts. 

The  Civil  Service  Commission  unlocked  the  door  for  all 
sorts  of  appointments.  Canal  and  road  contracts  were  made 
over  night  for  the  right  sort.  The  uninvited  and  luckless 
fellow  who  broke  through  the  Golden  Circlet  discovered  too 
^  late  that  even  if  he  could  get  a  bondsman  on  his  contract  he 
couldn't  lay  concrete  to  suit  the  engineers,  or  asphalt  under  the 
terms  of  the  day.  Barbers  became  specialists  in  roadwork 
and  were  thought  more  of  if  they  did  their  inspection  work  at 
home.  Election  district  workers  became  State  deputies  of  one 
thing  or  another.    A  gentleman,  by  profession  a  dentist,  in 


18      WHAT'S  YHE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


Herkimer  County,  was  put  in  charge  of  State  roads  there.  A 
gentleman,  by  profession  the  village  bootblack  and  peanut 
vender  in  Norwich,  Chenango  County,  became  road  inspector, 
he  having  taken  the  earlier  precaution  to  get  six  relatives  from 
Italy  on  the  poll  list.  A  gentleman,  whose  knowledge  of 
assignation  houses  overshadowed  his  other  business  qualifica- 
tions, was  kidnapped  from  the  obscurity  of  his  native  town  to 
tell  farmers — at  $io  a  day  and  expenses — how  to  raise  crops. 
A  man  whose  knowledge  of  oysters,  lobsters  and  clams  was 
gained  in  road  houses  while  he  was  building  political  fences, 
took  charge  of  the  coast  fisheries  of  the  State.  A  gentleman, 
unfortunate  victim  of  drugs,  took  charge  of  a  State  hospital  for 
the  insane.  A  gentleman  whose  only  known  crime  was 
larceny,  to  which  he  had  pleaded  guilty,  became  the  confiden- 
tial agent  of  a  great  State  department.  A  man  who  uncau- 
tiously  hung  his  overcoat  in  the  Aldermanic  room  of  the  New 
York  City  Hall  one  day  and  lost  a  roll  of  $2,000  hurriedly 
slipped  by  him  into  an  outside  pocket,  was  employed  to  show 
certain  contractors  how  their  work  could  be  best  done  with 
profit  to  themselves  and  others.  One  man  thus  interviewed 
took  things  so  literally  that  he  canceled  an  order  for  several 
thousand  bags  of  cement  on  a  rather  small  job  and  made  so 
bad  a  mess  of  it  that  it  took  all  the  suavity  of  his  most  imme- 
diate political  leader  tc  get  him  the  money  on  his  contract. 

It  was  an  era  of  thought  in  the  Democratic  Party.  State 
Hospital  officials  discovered  and  called  for  newly-patented 
articles.  Another  political  scientist  discovered  that  the  useless 
waste  product  of  a  certain  Democratic  paper  mill  would  make 
a  good  covering  for  roads  as  a  dust  layer.  Certain  gentlemen 
interested  in  up-State  schools,  who  ever  believed  in  agile 
thinking,  found  that  prison-made  desks  and  chairs,  good 
enough  for  New  York  City  schools,  lacked  height  and  breadth, 
and,  curiously  enough,  private  manufacturers,  with  foresight 
amounting  to  genius,  stood  ready  to  supply  the  exact  kind 
wanted.  The  prison  shoe  industry  went  down  as  the  private 
sales  went  up.  This  was  due  in  part  to  the  aesthetic  demands 
from  State  institutions  for  varying  styles.  Blankets  made  in 
State  institutions  lost  all  sense  of  economy  and  cost  more 
than  superior  goods  made  by  union  labor.    Even  office  boys 


AS  DIX  CAME  IN 


19 


of  Democratic  parentage  were  ambitious  to  share  in  the 
recrudescence  of  their  famous  party,  and  one  of  them  stamped 
the  O.  K.  of  the  Governor  on  many  big  accounts  against  the 
State,  thus  permitting  the  Chief  Executive  to  attend  to  those 
social  duties  which  required  him  to  pay  $ioo  a  dozen  for 
napkins  and  to  acquire  a  line  of  thermos  bottles  sufficient  to 
strain  the  manufacturing  facilities  of  a  modest  plant. 

Little  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  plumber  of  the  State 
Capitol  reconstruction,  knowing  the  expensive  complexities  of 
Greene  and  Ulster  County  politics,  should  join  the  expansion 
of  thought  in  the  Democratic  Party  and  read  his  own  ideas 
into  the  Capitol  contract.  That  he  was  discovered  in  Sulzer's 
administration  with  some  other  Capitol  contractors  was,  of 
course,  unfortunate,  but  he  had  the  solace  of  knowing  he  had 
the  respect  and  sympathy  of  the  new  school  of  his  party.  He 
was  not  committing  larceny  on  a  small  scale  like  the  gentle- 
man from  Montgomery  County  who,  not  being  provided  with 
a  job,  convinced  the  Court  of  Claims  that  the  canal  had  over- 
flowed his  cabbage  patch  to  the  extent  of  $800.  The  fact  that 
he  leased  this  ground  from  the  State  at  $50  a  year,  that  he 
sublet  most  of  it  for  storage  purposes  at  $1200  a  year,  and 
that  he  cjid  not  grow  cabbage,  might  ordinarily  have  entered 
into  the  m.inds  of  the  Court,  had  the  case  been  presented  with 
clearness  for  the  State,  but  one  of  the  chief  appraisers  of  canal 
land  damages  was  a  German  baker  whose  love  of  pinochle 
had  made  him  a  brother  in  charity  and  good  humor  to  all 
the  world,  and  to  the  recognition  of  this  fact  may  be  credited 
the  fictitious  cabbage  of  the  Montgomery  County  Democrat. 

As  thought  progresses  by  what  it  feeds  on,  the  new  and 
golden  era  of  the  resurrected  Democracy  under  Dix  found 
new  channels  to  reward  those  who  would  go  to  the  top  of  the 
mountain  and  look  down  into  the  valley  of  prosperity.  The 
phrase  "imported"  stone  was  coined  by  a  gentleman  in  the 
^  Highway  Department  whose  official  salary  was  $5,000,  and 
whose  unofficial  salary  has  permitted  him,  since  that  period, 
to  indulge  in  luxuries  which  are  forbidden  to  those  who  are 
not  receivers  in  the  class  of  commitments  and  obligations. 
"Imported"  stone  meant  there  was  none  good  enough  in  the 
county,  and  an  extra  price  of  $2  a  cubic  yard  went  to  pay  for 


20     WHATS  The  matter  with  new  YORK? 


freight  and  for  hauling  to  the  proposed  road.  It  is  to  the 
credit  of  the  native  contractors  that  they  were  able  to  find 
native  stone,  sometimes  stone  fences  along  the  line  of  road, 
thus  saving  $2  a  yard  in  the  cost.  The  fact  that  the  excess 
profit  went  to  the  contractor  instead  of  the  State  must  be 
charged  to  road  inspectors  of  smoky  vision  and  a  system  o£ 
supervision  warped  in  its  usage  by  that  human  intelligence 
which  takes  a  nap  when  campaign  collectors  are  around. 

With  these  many  issues  and  others  of  prime  importance  on 
hand,  and  always  well  handled,  it  is  not  surprising  that  lax 
attention  was  paid  to  the  development  of  State  industries  in 
the  various  institutions,  the  proper  collection  of  corporation 
and  inheritance  taxes,  and  the  development  of  a  proper  system 
of  conservation.  It  was  to  this  chaos  that  William  Sulzer  fell 
heir  as  Governor,  and  his  attempt  to  reform  conditions  not 
only  was  blocked  by  the  legislature,  but  led  to  his  political 
execution.  Mr.  Glynn,  coming:  into  office  and  with  politics 
in  the  back  of  his  head,  decided  wisely,  as  he  thought,  to  drive 
into  an  ambitious  and,  in  many  respects,  a  meritorious  line  of 
legislation,  and  permit  departmental  conditions  to  remain 
undisturbed  at  least  for  the  tentative  term  imposed  by  the 
court  of  impeachment.  No  reorganization  of  the  mess  left  by 
Dix  and  not  improved  by  Governor  Sulzer  was  attempted. 

It  was  this  condition  and  a  bankrupt  treasury  that  Gov- 
ernor Whitman  faced  when  he  took  office.  Governor  Glynn 
had  asked  the  legislature  for  a  direct  State  tax,  acknowledging 
that  the  ordinary  revenues  would  not  meet  the  vital  obliga- 
tions of  the  State.  Party  leaders  persuaded  him  to  reverse 
himself  because  of  campaign  conditions,  and  he  vetoed  his 
own  proposition.  Then  he  asked  for  a  big  bond  issue  to  take 
care  of  institutional  necessities  in  the  prisons  and  hospitals, 
but  this,  too,  was  abandoned.  Then  came  some  lightning 
financiering,  money  appropriated  by  previous  legislatures  but 
spent  only  in  part  or  not  yet  under  contract  for  necessary 
work  in  State  asylums  and  charitable  homes,  was  voted  back 
into  the  State  Treasury  by  vetoes  of  the  re-appropriation,  and 
a  bogus  surplus  established.  No  provision  was  made  in  the 
fiscal  budget  for  the  State  legislative  printing,  for  the  Capitol 
repairs,  already  finished  but  not  paid  to  the  extent  of  more 


AS  DIX  CAME  IN 


21 


than  a  million  dollars.  No  money  was  appropriated  to  take 
care  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  nor  the  advertising 
therefor.  No  money  was  put  in  the  budget  to  take  care  of 
the  State  Industrial  and  Compensation  Departments  for  the 
last  nine  months  of  the  fiscal  year.  No  funds  were  provided 
to  pay  for  canal  contracts  pending  a  legitimate  issue  of  bonds; 
necessary  and  vital  money  requirements  of  State  institutions 
were  vetoed.  The  blaze  of  ''economy"  went  to  the  point  where 
the  Civil  Service  Commissioners  coming  in  under  Governor 
Whitman  had  to  pay  for  the  postage  of  the  department  out  of 
their  own  pockets  until  relief  could  come.  Glynn  had  given  a 
low  budget  with  a  vengeance,  a  fraudulent  budget,  the  evil 
results  of  which  are  yet  shown  in  the  failure  of  the  legislature 
this  year  to  meet  all  the  essential  money  requirements  of  the 
State's  institutions. 


22      WHAT'S  The  matter  with  new  YORKf 


HOW  NEW  YORK  STATE'S  BUDGET  HAS  SWOLLEN  BY 
MILLIONS  A  YEAR  TOLD  IN  OFFICIAL  FIGURES 


Total  expenditures,  10  years,  from  1896  to 
1905,  $258,460,052.77. 


Total  expenditures,  10  years,  from  1906  to 
1915,  $673,462,496.72. 

Average  increase  per  year,  from  1906  to 
1915,  $41,500,244.39. 


Increase  in  the  general  administration  of  State  Govern- 
ment, wholly  apart  from  bond  issues,  canal  and  highway  con- 
struction, interest  on  the  public  debt  and  sinking  funds  is 
shown  by  the  following  startling  figures: 

1906 — Total  expenditures  for  departments  $24,897,793.21 

1915 — Total  expenditures  for  departments   47,185,351.22 

This  shows  an  increase  of  practically  100  per  cent,  in  10 
years  for  the  ordinary  expenses  of  government. 


OUR  STATUTE  MAKERS 


23 


THE  LEGISLATURE. 

Much  of  the  evil  from  which  New  York  State  suffers 
comes  from  the  Legislature.  Few  able  men  who  go  to  Al- 
bany care  to  remain  after  a  survey  of  the  situation.  The 
present  speaker  of  the  Assembly,  Mr.  Sweet,  of  Oswego, 
stands  out  as  a  really  able  man  of  conscience  and  purpose. 
He  has  no  rival  across  the  corridor  in  the  State  Senate.  A 
dozen  such  men  as  Sweet  would  lift  the  State  to  a  decently 
proper  place  in  Government.  There  are  younger  men  such  as 
Hamilton  Fish,  Jr.,  of  Putnam,  and  Senator  Walters,  of  Syra- 
cuse, who  know  how  to  do  things,  but  the  great  majority  in 
both  the  Senate  and  the  Assembly  have  small  conception  of 
their  duty  to  the  State  and  less  care  for  what  happens  in  legis- 
lation not  affecting  their  respective  districts.  The  man  who 
gets  an  appropriation  for  a  bridge  which  his  county  or  town 
ought  to  pay  for  feels  happy  with  all  the  world  and  the  real 
ills  of  the  State  don't  cross  his  mind.  The  percentage  of  gen- 
eral intelligence  has  fallen  sadly  of  recent  years,  even  to  the 
point  where  it  has  excited  the  comment  of  visitors. 

Most  of  the  gentlemen  coming  to  the  Legislature  are  too 
busy  looking  after  their  own  finances  in  a  small  way  to  bother 
about  the  State.  On  any  really  big  subject  they  follow  the 
lead  of  a  few  men  for  good  or  evil.  Some  of  these  nondescript 
members  are  not  personally  corrupt  but  are  made  equally  bad 
by  what  may  be  called  misfeasance  by  incompetence.  There 
is  a  lot  of  motion  picture  morality  about  many  others,  shrewd, 
but  small  men,  always  playing  to  the  people  back  home.  They 
take  atoms  in  the  moral  atmosphere  and  blow  them  into  bal- 
loons of  virtue  by  the  skilful  use  of  debate.  Then  while  thus 
garbed  in  the  civic  goodness  of  rhetoric  they  get  into  the 
alleys  of  vice,  gather  the  toll  that  is  there  for  them  and  are 
back  again  when  duty  calls  with  all  the  open  zeal  of  old 
-crusaders  who  had  done  their  ablest  moral  duty. 

Not  at  all  unclear  are  these  fellows.  Homelike  of  appear- 
ance as  they  eat  their  buckwheat  cakes  and  honey,  with  nap- 
kins covering  collars  of  ancient  date,  green  enough  apparently 
to  be  sold  bonds  of  the  confederacy,  solemn  enough  to  be 
deacons  in  a  modest  Methodisty,  but  alert  enough  to  see  a 


24      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 

division  of  legislative  light  &o  narrow  that  the  quickest  camera 
might  miss  it. 

Small  wonder  that  one  of  those  gentry  having  been  con- 
vinced to  the  tune  of  $2,000  when  votes  had  a  critical  money 
value  collected  from  the  lieutenant  of  the  day  so  to  speak 
(although  it  was  night)  and  then  absentmindedly  and  in 
haste  collected  from  the  Lieutenant's  boss,  known  as  the 
Major,  before  the  two  pseudo  military  gentlemen  could  com- 
pare notes  about  the  sad  occasion.  Although  they  were  angry 
at  the  decidedly  immoral  and  unbridled  atmosphere  thus 
created,  they  concluded  it  was  really  a  lesson  in  finance,  and 
so  charged  it  to  their  principal  who  knew  more  about  that  sort 
of  thing  than  they  did. 

This  legislator's  method  of  doubling  the  normal  price  in 
an  emergency  had  less  wit  than  that  of  a  gentleman  with  an 
Irish  name  and  a  long  line  of  American  ancestry.  He  helped 
kill  a  very  important  and  graft-laden  bill  one  evening;  that  is 
important  to  those  behind  it.  He  at  once  became  the  idol  of 
certain  reformers  and  of  some  other  persons  who  had  become 
"Reformers"  because,  owing  to  excess  of  applicants,  the  lanes 
of  vice  had  been  closed  to  them. 

But  on  the  next  night  a  motion  having  been  made  to  re- 
consider the  vote,  the  gentleman  of  the  Irish  name  and  long 
American  ancestry  made  a  speech  assailing  his  conscience  and 
thought  of  the  preceding  night — a  sort  of  human  self-reprisal, 
and  carried  the  vote.  It  turned  out  later  that  his  contemplative 
mind  had  figured  to  the  point  where  he  believed  his  virtuous 
reputation  could  overturn — and  thereby  deliver — 18  votes. 
Like  a  careful  man  he  set  his  price  upon  them,  graduated 
according  to  the  personalities  of  the  honorable  gentlemen  and 
held  that  he  represented  them  en  bloc.  His  speech  of  self- 
abnegation  and  distrust  of  his  own  opinions  of  the  night  before 
was  so  strong  that  he  carried  with  him  some  men  of  surface 
sentiment  he  didn't  count  on,  but  with  his  agile  mind  work- 
ing he  put  them  in  the  bill  ot  lading  when  he  went  to  collect. 
He  got  the  money,  too,  with  a  good  pat  on  the  back  for  being 
a  real  force  in  a  crisis.  The  Napoleon  of  the  Legislature, 
known  as  the  Major,  having  his  mind  mainly  on  the  future, 
jotted  down  the  names  of  the  men  of  elastic  virtue  so  newly 


THE  LEGISLATURE 


25 


discovered  and  kept  them  in  his  mind  as  glow  worms  of 
civilization.  Kept  them  for  the  day  when  he  could  himself 
feed  them  the  little  bit  of  oxygen  sometimes  needful  in  the 
life  swing  of  making  laws.  So  when  some  big  bugs  in  the 
Legislature  put  sky  high  prices  upon  a  bill  of  a  very  few 
lines,  but  broad  accomplishments,  the  Major  said  to  them 
things  that  cannot  be  recorded  and  sent  his  lieutenant  to  get 
votes  at  cut  rates  among  the  men  of  moral  thought  with  whom 
he  had  not  dealt  except  en  bloc  through  his  American  friend 
of  the  Irish  name.  The  lieutenant  was  a  gentleman  so  im- 
pervious to  his  own  talents,  or  rather  so  professionally  for- 
getful of  them,  that  he  could  blush  to  the  point  of  modesty 
if  the  occasion  insistently  called.  In  a  delicate  place  he  could 
be  as  hesitating  as  a  frog  surrounded  by  four  black  bass  fisher- 
men and  hesitating  where  to  jump.  After  he  had  discreetly 
seen  three  of  the  moralists  and  flashed  to  their  non-acute 
minds  what  he  wanted  to  do,  he  discovered  they  were  as  im- 
peccable as  the  great  granite  rocks  which  frown  forbiddingly 
at  the  sea  wanderers  on  the  East  Coast  of  Ireland.  Then  the 
Major  turned  his  hitherto  uninterrupted  genius  upon  a  few 
more  of  the  men  he  had  paid  for  en  bloc  only  to  find  that  they 
too  had  ijnderlying  morality  to  the  point  where  mere  human 
logic,  even  gilded,  wouldn't  uncover  a  scale  of  vice. 

It  followed  that  the  big  bugs,  all  masters  of  legislative 
philosophy,  got  their  top  price.  The  Major  and  his  lieutenant 
got  experience,  and  the  gentleman  with  long  American  an- 
cestry and  the  Irish  name,  who  unfortunately  had  only  one 
arm,  had  at  least  the  splendid  achievement  to  his  credit  of 
hearing,  from  a  past  master  of  the  game,  that  with  two  arms 
he  could  carry  the  capitol  from  Albany.  Of  course,  this  recital 
has  no  real  place  in  a  volume  devoted  to  the  art  of  saving 
money  for  the  State  and  is  interjected  wholly  as  a  sidelight 
upon  a  prevailing  method  of  making  laws.  It  is  related  solely 
-  so  that  the  taxpayers  who  wonder  at  some  things  may  know 
something  of  the  legislative  mind  which  never  permits  truth 
to  handicap  the  business  imagination  nor  tie  the  cautious 
medley  of  thought  which  sometimes  undresses  facts  and  robs 
them  of  the  vital  aspects  which  belong  to  them. 


26      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


This  little  picture  of  the  Legislature  is  not  overdrawn.  If 
in  the  correctional  and  chastened  atmosphere  of  some  public 
unheaval  all  legislators  seem  responsive  it  is  simply  a  case 
where  they  are  willing  for  the  moment  to  have  their  thought 
fashioned  by  an  ever  moving  people,  who  sometimes  stop  long 
enough  to  take  stock  of  what  is  being  done.  The  average 
legislator  always  keeps  his  inner  mind  collapsible,  gauging 
it  to  the  instinct  of  the  hour.  The  real  force  for  good  behind  a 
Legislature  of  recent  days  is  an  upstanding  Governor  and 
public  sentiment  properly  developed  by  the  newspapers.  The 
two  united  cannot  be  overcome,  plus  the  assistance  of  able 
men  in  the  Senate  and  Assembly.  Publicity  of  any  public 
evil  makes  a  rapid  cure  if  there  be  any  fair  instruments  of 
Government  to  work  with,  so  we  may  not  despair  of  proper 
remedies  for  State  evils,  bad  as  these  evils  are,  if  the  best  men 
at  the  top  see  their  duty. 


MILLIONS  IN  WASTE  HERE 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS. 

By  far  the  most  important  problem  before  the  people  of 
this  State  is  the  Highway  Department.  It  is  not  understood, 
and,  until  properly  met,  will  be  the  most  vexing  of  all  issues 
for  the  taxpayers.  About  half  the  State  highways  now  built 
are  so  much  junk.  They  cannot  be  rebuilt  out  of  bond  issues, 
as  will  be  hereafter  explained,  so  they  must,  under  the  guise 
of  "repairs,"  be  rebuilt  under  direct  appropriations  by  the 
Legislature  which  no  later,  I  predict,  than  1920  will  be 
not  less  than  $10,000,000  a  year.  This  will  be  exclusive  of 
about  $5,000,000  more  a  year  to  meet  the  interest  and  principal 
of  the  $100,000,000  bond  issue. 

We  have  committed  ourselves  to  about  10,000  miles  of 
highways,  of  which  6,500  miles  are  built  or  in  process  of 
building  and,  like  the  feeble-minded  in  our  institutions,  we 
shall  always  have  them  with  us.  One  question  is,  shall  we 
build  roads  that  require  a  minimum  of  maintenance  each  year 
or  roads  that  cost  $1,000  a  mile  each  year  to  keep  in  shape? 
Shall  we  put  the  Highway  Department  on  a  business  basis, 
as  in  New  York  City  under  this  fusion  administration,  or 
continue  ?t  as  a  profitable  playground  for  men  in  politics? 
Shall  we  exploit  one  man's  tar,  another  man's  asphalt,  decay- 
ing quarry  stone  and  costly  patent  pavements? 

The  Highway  Department  as  it  is  to-day  was  organized 
under  Governor  Hughes  to  spend  a  portion  of  the  first 
$50,000,000  bond  issue.  Let  us  give  him  credit  for  the  very 
best  motives,  which  were  undoubtedly  his,  and  for  his  lack  of 
business  instinct  which  put  gentlemen  of  no  road-building 
knowledge  at  the  head.  Governor  Dix  reorganized  the  depart- 
ment to  make  it  the  liquid  asset  of  persons  who  called  them- 
selves the  Democratic  Party.  Governor  Sulzer  put  at  the 
head  a  painstaking  lawyer  who  didn't  know  the  difference 
^between  a  Topeka  specification  and  a  bituminous  macadam 
mixed  by  the  penetration  method.  He  called  in  as  his  advisors 
one  gentleman  of  nebulous  reputation  as  a  road  expert,  another 
whose  interest  m  a  patent  pavement  disturbed  the  neutrality 
of  his  business  repose,  and  a  third  whose  salary  of  $50  a  day 
from  the  State  did  not  worry  him  into  any  sobriety  of  thought 


28      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


in  road  building.  The  result  was  chaos.  Governor  Glynn, 
through  a  special  commissioner,  James  W.  Osborne,  expended 
more  than  $25,000  to  discover  what  everybody  knew  and, 
after  this,  Governor  Whitman  came  in  to  overturn  the  depart- 
ment once  again.  With  the  coming  and  going  of  all  these 
top-heav}'^  people,  came  and  departed  Division  Engineers  and 
a  trail  of  men  lower  down.  Some  of  these  discovered  virtue 
in  Barber  asphalt,  others  in  Niagara  River  gravel,  others  in 
Cementatious  Hudson  River  gravel,  others  in  cement  and  in 
sandpits,  others  in  Glutrin,  others  in  brands  of  manufactured 
asphalt  and  road  oils,  others  in  patented  pavements  until  rape 
was  committed  on  the  Treasury  every  day. 

That  story  is  now  at  an  end.  There  is  not  much  left  of 
this  system,  but  the  great  question  of  good  roads  and  economy 
in  building  and  maintaining  them  remains.  The  answer  is  a 
wholesale  reorganization  that  will  do  away  with  political  pay- 
rolls, produce  a  repair  system  run  by  the  State  and  a  type  of 
road  suitable  to  the  locality  where  laid.  We  are  now  on 
the  verge  of  a  direct  annual  tax  for  our  highway  system. 
What  a  joke  upon  the  people  it  is  to  have  roads  resurfaced 
by  contractors  at  thousands  of  dollars  a  mile!  Their  work 
is  checked  by  inspectors  at  $4  a  day,  by  district  engineers,  resi- 
dent engineers  and  division  engineers.  Then  it  is  checked  up 
in  the  Highway  Department,  one  overhead  charge  after 
another. 

In  the  six  years  from  1909  to  1914,  inclusive,  the  cost  of 
maintaining  160  miles  of  waterbound  macadam  State  roads 
was  $1,444  per  mile,  per  road,  per  year.  Last  year  the  cost 
of  maintaining  all  the  waterbound  macadam  roads  in  the 
State,  old  and  new,  2,298  miles  in  all,  was  $1,055  P^r  mile. 
This  was  200  per  cent,  more  than  the  cost  of  repair  and  main- 
tenance in  Brooklyn  and  The  Bronx,  and  40  per  cent,  more 
than  in  Manhattan,  on  the  heaviest  traveled  streets  in  the 
world. 

It  cost  in  New  York  State  for  maintenance  on  192  miles 
of  gravel  roads  last  year,  $577  per  mile.  It  cost  in  Brooklyn 
for  sheet  asphalt  road  maintenance  $308  a  mile;  in  the  Bronx 
$313  a  mile,  and  in  Manhattan  $836  a  mile,  all  done  by  the 
City.  There  was  in  New  York  State  last  year  a  total  of  2,387 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


29 


miles  of  bituminous  macadam,  penetration  method.  The 
cost  for  maintenance  was  $510  per  mile,  but  as  many  of  these 
roads  were  practically  new,  the  actual  cost  on  the  old  roads 
was  much  more  per  mile.  The  cost  on  295  miles  of  second 
class  concrete  State  roads  was  $1,050  per  mile. 

It  does  not  need  any  imagination  by  the  reader  to  think 
what  will  happen  to  this  State  financially  unless  new  methods 
are  put  into  force  both  in  road-building  and  repairing,  but, 
before  discussing  new  road  types,  let  us  finish  the  repair 
problem. 

How  different  in  England  and  Ireland — yes,  even  in  such  a 
little  place  as  the  Isle  of  Wight.  In  those  places  a  well- 
equipped  plant  is  kept  moving  over  the  roads  in  each  county. 
No  road  is  permitted  to  get  to  the  point  where  it  unravels, 
becomes  rutted  and  needs  serious  repairs.  There  is  a  mixing 
machine,  an  asphalt  heater  on  wheels  and,  always  following 
behind,  a  heavy  roller  to  bind  the  road.  A  crew  of  ten  covers 
the  highway.  At  specified  points  the  men  find  various  grades 
of  stone,  sand  and  tar.  The  machines  and  labor  do  the  rest. 
The  moment  a  road  begins  to  go  in  any  part,  it  is  spotted  and 
the  county  crew  does  the  rest.  The  road  is  made  as  good  as 
new  and  <he  gang  goes  to  other  fields.  These  men  see  the 
sides  of  the  roads  are  freed  of  weeds,  so  that  water  can  leave 
the  surface  quickly  and  the  culverts  be  kept  clear.  Constant 
supervision  keeps  the  cost  down.  No  macadam  road  is  let 
go  to  the  breaking  point.  A  crew  of  ten  men,  except  in  cases 
of  exceptional  repairs,  will  cover  twenty  miles  of  roads  a 
week,  and  these  are  not  gone  over  again  for  several  months. 
The  average  cost  is  $200  per  mile  per  year  on  some  of  the 
most  famous  and  most  traveled  country  roads,  and  the  secret, 
aside  from  honest  organization — which  the  taxpayers  in  each 
county  keep  an  eye  on — lies  in  constant  watchfulness  and 
work. 

In  New  York  State,  we  see  a  road  beginning  to  go.  It 
may  need  only  a  coat  of  oil  and  screenings  to  hold  it  right 
for  a  year,  but  nothing  is  done.  The  road  begins  to  unravel, 
but  another  twelve  months  pass.  Then  it  is  a  wreck  and  has 
to  be  torn  up  and  resurfaced  at  a  cost  of  $6,000  or  more  a  mile. 
The  cure  is  costly,  where  prevention  would  have  been  cheap. 


30      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


The  remedy  is  a  repair  organiation  for  all  maintenance,  either 
by  divisions  of  the  State  or  by  counties. 

In  this  State,  for  illustration,  three  properly-equipped 
road-repairing  outfits  could  cover  Dutchess  County  in  a  month, 
then  proceed  to  Columbia,  and  return  to  the  first.  The  roads 
kept  in  proper  repair  would,  after  a  while,  need  less  and  less 
maintenance,  and  costs,  as  in  New  York  City,  would  steadily 
decrease.  The  contractors'  profits  and  much  of  the  State  cost 
for  supervising  this  contract  work  would,  of  course,  be  wiped 
out  and  the  incentive  to  cheat  the  State  in  the  quality  and 
quantity  of  material  would  be  destroyed. 

With  this  done,  it  is  well  within  the  facts  to  say  that  the 
maintenance  charges  would  not  average  $500  per  mile  per  year 
after  the  system  had  grown  into  uniformity  and  efficiency  of 
work,  and  a  sum  of  more  than  $5,000,000  a  year  would  be 
saved  on  repairs  and  maintenance  when  the  io,ooo-mile  sys- 
tem is  completed.  This  is  a  very  important  subject  for  the 
thinking  taxpayers  of  New  Yor-k  City,  if  they  will  only  stop 
to  see  that  the  State's  cost  of  mainaining  State  highways  and 
town  roads,  by  direct  appropriation  from  the  Legislature,  has 
increased  more  than  $2,000,000  a  year  since  1913. 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


31 


LACK  OF  ORGANIZATION. 

The  Highway  Department  lacks  a  well  equipped  labora- 
tory and  Bureau  of  Tests,  but,  above  all,  an  efficiency  bureau, 
to  gather  statistics  relating  to  deposits  of  gravel  and 
sand,  the  location  of  stone  quarries,  type  of  stone,  its 
value  per  cubic  yard,  its  haulage  cost  to  nearby  territory, 
freight  rates  to  any  point  for  given  materials,  traffic  wear  in 
the  several  sections,  whether  heavy  or  light,  a  census  (?f  road 
materials  owned  by  towns  or  counties,  the  local  price  of 
labor,  the  rainfall  and  snowfall  in  different  districts,  the 
degrees  of  heat  and  cold,  the  presence  of  swamps  or  under- 
lying water  courses — all  of  which  enter  into  the  cost  and 
durability  of  road-building.  Because  of  the  shiftless  methods, 
indeed  the  total  lack  of  organization,  much  loss  has  come  to 
the  State.  Hundreds  of  illustrations  might  be  written,  but 
a  few  will  not  clog  the  record. 

The  Chief  Engineer  of  the  Western  Division  of  the  State 
called  for  bids  on  a  road  entering  East  Aurora,  and  specified 
Niagara  River  gravel  as  the  aggregate  for  a  concrete  founda- 
tion for  a  brick  pavement.  The  freight  alone  on  this  Niagara 
gravel  w^s  50  cents  a  yard.  Right  inland,  one-half  a  mile 
from  the  side  of  the  proposed  road,  was  as  fine  a  bed  of  gravel 
as  there  is  in  the  State,  which  the  owner  would  have  sold 
cheerfully  for  40  cents  a  cubic  yard,  less  than  the  freight  on 
similar  material  from  the  Niagara  district. 

In  the  case  of  the  Woodstock-Saugerties  road,  in  Ulster 
■County,  the  plans  specified  imported  stone,  that  is,  stone 
freighted  from  another  county  30  miles  down  the  Hudson  and 
then  hauled  yard  by  yard  up  the  hills  to  the  proposed  road, 
the  haulage  and  freight  making  an  additional  cost  of  $2  a  cubic 
yard.  Right  on  the  side  of  the  road  were  two  quarries,  the 
stone  of  which  could  have  been  purchased  for  $1  a  cubic  yard, 
^  when  crushed. 

The  worst  feature  here,  however,  was  that  the  type  of 
road  should  never  have  been  built,  and  would  not  if  there  was 
an  efficiency  bureau.  This  road  was  a  wreck  six  months  after 
being  rebuilt  four  years  ago,  and  has  been  repaired  three 
times  since  at  great  cost.   The  traffic  of  big  farm  wagons  and 


32      WHAT'S  T^HE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


stone  trucks  with  heavy  loads  on  this  highway  called  for  the 
stoutest  sort  of  material,  instead  of  the  lightest.  The  money 
of  the  State  was  thrown  away  not  once,  but  twice,  on  this 
road  by  this  system  of  inefficiency.  Let  me  give  the  record  of 
this  road  in  figures  and  say  to  the  reader  that  it  is  only  one 
of  many,  in  which  the  State's  loss  runs  into  the  millions. 

The  number  of  this  road  is  142,  and  is  known  as  the 
Saugerties- Woodstock,  part  3.  Its  length  is  2.85  miles,  or  a 
little  short  of  three  miles  and  its  width  is  14  feet. 


Its  first  cost  was  in  1904    $39,317  12 

Maintenance  to  1912    8,319.00 

Resurfacing  in   1910    8,480.00 

Resurfaced  in  1912    29,648.00 

Repairs  in  1913    4,522.29 

Repairs  in  1914    3,959.66 

Repairs  in  1915    17,620.33 


Total  cost    $111,866.40 


This  road,  bear  in  mind,  is  less  than  three  miles  long. 
Since  the  spring  of  1912  it  has  cost  the  State  more  than 
$55,000,  or  an  average  of  more  than  $4,500  a  mile  per  year  to 
maintain  in  repair.  Wagons  drawn  by  six  horses  and  carrying 
huge  stone  slabs  from  quarries  use  this  road,  and  yet  the 
Highway  Department  put  down  there  a  bituminous  mixed 
macadam,  penetration  method.  Loads  as  high  as  six  tons 
come  over  a  road  suited  at  best  for  ordinary  wagon  and  auto- 
mobile traffic,  and  yet  this  same  foolish  work  continues. 

Take  Road  417,  in  Warren  County.  It  is  seven  and  a  half 
miles  long. 


Its  first  cost  was  in  1907    $82,700  00 

Maintenance  to  1912    14,199.00 

Repaired  in  1912   52,973.00 

Repairs  in  1913   1,397.78 

Repairs  in  1914    8,901.78 

Repairs  in  1915    916.41 


Total   $161,089.97 


Surely  the  taxpayer  must  regard  the  above  with  amaze- 
ment. Here  is  a  road  made  new  in  the  fall  of  191 2  at  great 
cost,  and  yet,  in  three  years,  a  total  of  $11,215.97  is  spent  upon 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


33 


it.  Next  to  this  road  in  Warren  County  is  Highway  No.  418; 
its  length  is  nine  and  three-quarter  miles,  and  was  built  in 


1908. 

The  first  cost  was  in  1908    $109,182.00 

Maintenance  to  1912    4,072.00 

Resurfaced  in  1912    68,104.00 

Repairs  in  1913    1,780.00 

Repairs  in  1914    13,294.00 

Repairs  in  1915    1,311.15 


Total    $197,743.15 


The  road,  it  will  be  seen,  lasted  from  the  autumn  of  1908 
to  the  spring  of  1912,  and  then  was  practically  rebuilt.  Since 
then  this  "new"  road  has  cost,  outside  of  patrol  service, 
$16,385.15.  What  is  going  to  happen  to  the  taxpayers  of  this 
State  in  annual  direct  payments  for  highway  maintenance  if 
something  radical  in  reorganization  is  not  soon  done  is  best 
illustrated  by  taking  the  following  two  roads: 

Road  No.  743,  a  shade  more  than  four  miles  long,  runs 
from  Babylon  to  Bayshore,  and  was  thrown  open  to  public 
traffic  in  the  first  part  of  1909. 


Its  first  cost  was  in  1908    $40,537.00 

Repairs  up  to  and  including  1912  10,230.00 

Resurfacing  in  1912    38,750.00 

Maintenance,  1914-1915    3,362.00 

Now  to  be  resurfaced  with  concrete, 

bids  called  for,  estimated  cost  . .  40,000.00 


Total    $132,843.00 

Cost  per  mile    $33,200.75 


It  will  be  noticed  that  it  cost  almost  as  much  to  resurface 
this  road  three  inches  deep  in  1912  as  to  build  it  a  few  years 
before  six  inches  deep  and  now,  in  less  than  three  years,  it 
is  to  be  resurfaced  again  at  a  rate  of  $10,000  a  mile.  Bear  in 
mind  that  every  dollar  for  repairs,  resurfacing,  maintenance, 
or  whatever  it  may  be  called,  comes  direct  from  the  State 
Treasury  by  annual  appropriations,  which  this  year,  1916, 
amounts  roughly  to  $3,500,000.  Just  jump  from  this  road  in 
Suffolk  to  the  adjoining  county  of  Nassau.  Here  we  have 
Highway  No.  5,106,  not  quite  two  and  one-half  miles  long, 
running  from  Little  Neck  to  Westbury,  and  now  a  complete 
wreck.    This  road  was  finished  in  1912. 


34      WHATS-THE  MATTER  WITH  XEW  YORK? 


Its  first  cost  was  $29,511,  and  since  then  in  repairs  $3,025, 
or  a  total  of  $32,536,  a  cost  per  mile  of  $13,226.  It  is  now  to 
be  resurfaced  with  concrete  at  an  estimated  cost  of  $30,000, 
making  a  total  since  1912  for  this  road,  2.46  miles  long,  of 
$62,536,  or  about  $25,400  a  mile.  It  is  useless  to  clog  this 
book  with  figures  on  road  after  road,  but  you  have  had  here 
presented  to  you,  in  this  chapter,  five  roads  in  different  coun- 
ties whose  total  length  is  less  than  twenty-six  and  one-half 
miles.  Let  us  say  nothing  of  their  first  cost.  That  came  out 
of  the  famous  bond  issue  for  which  we  shall  be  paying  for 
fifty  years.  But  look  at  the  enormous  maintenance  cost  on 
those  twenty-six  and  one-half  miles  of  roads,  and  remember 
we  are  to  have  about  10,000  miles,  of  which  6,500  are  com- 
pleted or  under  contract.  There  are  100  roads  in 
this  State  worse  in  some  respects,  and  300  that  are 
as  bad,  with  as  many  more  in  various  stages  of  decay. 
This  will  suggest  to  the  taxpayer  that  the  time  for  a  complete 
reorganization  of  highway  methods  has  come;  that  non- 
durable types  of  road  must  go,  no  matter  who  is  behind  them; 
that  the  traffic  wear  and  soil  conditions  in  localities  must  be 
studied  for  the  best  results  in  road-building;  but  that,  above 
all,  the  great  Highway  Department  must  be  effectively  taken 
out  of  politics  and  made  a  reputable  arm  of  the  State's  gov- 
ernment. When  roads  not  yet  two  years  old  are  down  for 
heavy  repairs,  or  already  have  been  repaired  at  considerable 
cost,  the  time  surely  has  come  to  use  every  practicable  method 
in  bringing  about  efficiency.  I  could  give  twenty  examples 
of  roads  not  finished  two  years  now  down  for  costly  repairs. 
I  found  these  twenty  in  a  batch  of  eighty-six  examined. 

Now,  let  us  take  Roads  Nos.  142,  417,  418  and  743.  Their 
total  mileage  is  24.23  miles,  almost  24^/2.  Their  original  cost 
was  $271,736.12.  From  the  period  in  which  they  were  built, 
and  until  the  close  of  191 5,  these  four  roads  in  the  aggregate 
have  cost  to  maintain,  repair,  or  call  it  what  you  will,  $331,- 
806.40.  That  is,  their  maintenance  cost  in  money  $60,039.12 
more  than  the  original  payments  for  building  them.  The  total 
mileage  of  these  four  roads  is  24  and  23/ 100  miles,  for  which  the 
State  has  paid  for  maintenance  $331,806.40,  an  average  cost  of 
$13,690  per  mile.    We  are  now  repairing  the  roads — "rebuild- 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


35 


ing"  is  the  real  word — -of  a  few  years  ago.  What  is  going  to 
happen  within  three  years  when  we  repair  the  roads  of 
1913  and  1914,  in  which  period  several  thousand  miles  were 
built?  If  we  neglect  to  resurface  them,  they  will  go  all  to 
pieces.  We  must  maintain  them.  Supposing  we  put  the  figure 
at  2,000  miles,  far  below  the  real  mileage,  and  the  cost  of 
reconstruction  at  $5,000  a  mile,  much  below  the  actual  figure, 
we  have  a  total  of  $10,000,000  in  1919  for  2,000  miles  of  roads. 
Let  us  suppose  the  other  8,000  miles  need  only  ordinary 
repairs,  and  average  it  at  $500  a  mile.  Then  we  have  $3,500,000 
more.  Our  interest  charges  and  amortization  on  the 
$100,000,000  of  bonds  will  then  be  about  $5,000,000  a  year, 
our  aid  to  town  roads  $2,000,000  (this  year  $1,950,000),  and 
we  have,  in  1919,  a  total  of  more  than  $20,000,000  a  year  in 
the  annual  budget.  Lest  anybody  think  this  the  least  bit 
fanciful,  let  me  say  that  this  year  the  appropriation  for  the 
State  Highway  Sinking  Fund  is  $3,168,465.64. 

Next  year  it  will  be  about  $600,000  more  for  annual  interest 
and  amortization  on  $10,000,000  of  additional  bonds;  for  high- 
way repairs  the  appropriation  is  roughly  $3,500,000;  for  State 
aid  to  town  highways  we  have  $1,950,000;  for  the  general  ad- 
ministraticm  of  the  Highway  Department,  $288,688;  county 
highways,  $195,000;  total,  $9,608,105.  This  is  wholly  aside 
from  $10,000,000  appropriated  this  year  from  bond  issues  for 
the  purpose  of  constructing  new  State  highways. 


36      WHATS  The  matter  with  new  YORK? 


INCOMPETENT  CONTRACTORS. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  bring  more  efficient  con- 
tractors into  the  employment  of  the  State.  This  can  be 
achieved  by  letting  it  be  known  that  the  conditions  of  the 
contract  will  be  adhered  to  strictly,  except  where  some  mani- 
fest injustice  may  be  shown,  and  then  the  terms  made  elastic, 
if  at  all,  only  on  the  written  authority  of  the  Commissioner, 
meeting  a  particular  situation  that  may  come  along.  By 
bringing  efficient  contractors,  who  have  proper  plants,  the 
cost  of  supervision  and  engineering  charges  will,  of  course,  be 
immediately  reduced,  as  there  will  be  rapid  road-building. 

To-day  a  great  many  of  the  contractors  working  for  the 
State  have  really  had  no  experience.  Some  of  them  have  been 
plumbers,  some  liquor  dealers,  some  have  been  keepers  of 
gambling  houses  who  have  brought  in  a  young  engineer 
with  them,  and  most  of  them  are  unable  to  put  up  their  own 
checks  with  their  proposals,  but,  instead,  furnish  certified 
checks  of  bonding  companies,  interested  in  certain  road 
materials.  Nearly  all  those  men  immediately  assign  their 
contracts  to  some  local  bank  or  to  some  person  who  finances 
the  work  from  month  to  month.  Now,  a  contractor  of  that 
sort  who  wins,  because  he  happens  to  be  the  lowest  bidder, 
never  has  an  adequate  plant.  His  stone  crusher  will  be  either 
small  or  otherwise  inadequate,  and  he  will  be  unable  to  crush 
a  proper  yardage  of  stone  so  as  to  give  employment  to  a  large 
staff ;  and,  in  all  probability,  he  will  be  short  of  proper  stone 
rollers  and  other  materials  that  call  for  efficiency  and  rapid 
organization. 

A  contractor  who  can,  with  ease,  crush  250  yards  of  stone 
a  day  will  be  able  to  finish  a  mile  of  road  in  splendid  shape  in 
three  weeks,  so  that  he  can  build  a  new  road  well  within  the 
summer  and  fall  seasons.  It  is  to  his  interest  to  build  it  as 
fast  as  possible,  as  well  as  to  the  interest  of  the  State,  but  if 
you  take  up  the  State  contracts  you  will  find  that  the  time 
limit  is  permitted  to  lapse,  and  that  men  with  wholly  inefficient 
organizations  are  attempting  to  build  some  of  our  most 
important  highways.  The  Commissioner,  as  the  law  provides, 
should  satisfy  himself  of  the  efficiency  and  ability  of  the  con- 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


37 


tractor  and  let  the  contracts  only  to  the  lowest  responsible 
bidder.  This  will  quickly  throw  the  fishmongers,  barbers  and 
others  out  of  the  contracting  business  and  permit  legitimate 
men  with  big  plants  to  build  the  roads.  The  average  time  of 
building  a  good  State  road  now  is  a  year  and  a  half,  where  it 
ought  to  be  five  months. 


The  last  of  the  $100,000,000  bond  issue  for 
State  Highways  will  have  been  expended  in 
1920,  and  road  building  in  new  areas  will  then 
stop  unless  the  State  votes  to  bond  itself  again. 
In  4920,  judging  from  present  conditions,  4,000 
miles  of  the  State  Highways  will  be  a  wreck — 
in  fact,  all  that  date  from  1914.  Resurfacing 
now  averages  $5,000  a  mile,  which  in  1920 
would  mean  $20,000,000  in  a  year.  As  the  State 
can't  stand  that,  the  roads  must  go  to  wreck, 
unless  swift  reorganization  begins  now. 


38      WHATS  The  matter  with  new  YORK? 


THE  ENGINEERING  FARCE. 

Almost  as  bad  in  broad  waste  of  the  public  money  is  the 
engineering  and  supervision  cost  on  road  construction  and 
repair  work.  It  is  on  many  roads  greater  by  loo  per  cent, 
than  on  the  New  York  City  subways,  where  the  cost  is  less 
than  8  per  cent,  of  the  contract. 

It  is,  in  a  majority  of  roads  the  author  has  studied,  greater 
than  the  engineering  cost  of  the  Panama  Canal,  which  was 
less  than  13  per  cent. 

This  simply  shows  the  extravagance  and  disorganization 
of  the  entire  system,  and  only  the  actual  figures  make  it 
believable.  Some  of  this  cost  is  a  direct  fraud  upon  the  State, 
and  due  wholly  to  favoritism  for  the  contractor  or  his  bonds- 
man. The  contract  is  let  and  the  warning  given  in  print  that 
"time  is  the  essence  of  the  contract."  Honest  bidders,  of 
course,  figure  this  in  their  totals.  The  clause,  however,  is  a 
dead  letter,  except  in  rare  cases  of  a  contractor  politically 
unpopular.  Let  me  give  a  few  extreme  cases  well  worth  the 
study  of  every  man  who  hopes  to  see  the  State  stop  confis- 
cating the  earnings  of  taxpayers. 


ROAD  NO.  749. 

Date  of  contract    June  23,  1911 

To  be  completed    Nov.  25,  1912 

Not  accepted    April   1,  1916 

Paid  to  contractor   $109,026 

Engineering  charges   ,..  $18,523 

Per  cent   17 

ROAD  NO.  763. 

Date  of  contract   April  4,  1911 

To  be  completed    Sept.  5,  1912 

Not  accepted    April   1,  1916 

Paid  to  contractor    $100,502 

Engineering  charges    $18,054 

Per  cent   18 

ROAD  NO.  924. 

Date  of  contract    June  22,  1911 

To  be  completed    Aug.  15,  1912 

Not  accepted   ,   April   1,  1916 

Paid  to  contractor    $44,505 

Engineering  charges    $10,644 

Per  cent   24 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


39 


ROADS  NOS.  5,103  AND  5,104. 


Date  of  contract    April  26,  1911 

To  be  completed    Sept.  20,  1912 

Not  accepted    April   1,  1916 

Paid  to  contractor    $100,772 

Engineering  charges    $18,800 

Per  cent   18 

Average  per  cent,  of  engineering 

charges  up  to  April  of  this 

year  on  the  five  roads  .......  19 


These  roads  had  not  been  accepted  or  completed  on  April 
ist  of  this  year,  as  this  book  was  being  finished.  The  average 
percentage  of  cost  v^as  19%.  The  total  mileage  of  these  roads 
is  thirty-four  and  one-third  miles.  The  engineering  and  super- 
vising charges  of  the  State  on  these  roads  amounts  to  $66,041, 
which  is  equal  to  a  cost  of  more  than  $1,900  a  mile.  This  cost 
does  not  include  any  charges  except  surveys  and  inspection, 
and  does  not  include  the  percentage  of  cost  to  be  charged  to 
these  roads  embracing  the  expenses  of  the  division  engineer's 
office,  autos,  chauffeurs,  rents,  stationery,  stenographers,  cor- 
respondence, telephones,  etc.  This  would  bring  the  cost  of 
engineering  to  $2,000  a  mile. 

These  five  roads  in  the  hands  of  incompetent  contractors 
were  three #and  one-half  years  behind  the  stipulated  time,  the 
state,  meanwhile,  paying  interest  charges  on  its  bonds  and 
amortization  fees  to  the  Sinking  Fund. 

Of  course,  the  contracts  should  have  been  broken  not  later 
than  1913  and  the  bonding  company  made  to  pay,  but  such  a 
startling  business  procedure  against  a  powerful  political  bond- 
ing company  is  unthinkable.  There  is  road  after  road  in  which 
the  engineering  costs  now  far  above  ten  per  cent.,  caused  in 
every  case  by  improper  or  incompetent  delays ;  but  the  State 
only  was  the  sufferer  and  no  attempt  was  made  to  collect 
from  the  bonding  company  or  the  contractor;  on  the  contrary, 
the  10  per  cent,  withheld  from  the  contractor  until  his  work  is 
accepted  is,  in  every  case,  cheerfully  paid  to  him  by  the  State. 
No  worse  building  methods  could  be  found  anywhere  on  earth, 
and  this  is  the  answer  in  part  to  the  enormous  cost  of  State 
highway-building. 

In  New  York  City,  which  may  be  taken  as  a  model  because 
of  the  enormous  amount  of  work,  the  great  expenditure  and 


40      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


the  system  by  which  the  work  is  done,  the  contractor  must 
perform  his  work  within  a  specified  contract  time,  or,  if 
delayed  by  weather,  the  record  is  there  to  show  that.  If  not 
delayed  for  reasons  which  the  department,  under  the  contract, 
can  excuse,  then  the  engineering  costs  after  the  time  limit  are 
charged  up  against  the  contractor,  and  not  against  the  City. 
The  reverse  is  true  of  the  State  Highway  Department, 
although  the  State  allegedly  is  protected  in  the  form  of  its 
contract. 

By  this  negligence  in  the  management  of  the  Highway 
Department,  roads  are  now  under  construction  which  were 
begun  three  years  ago,  and  many  more  than  two  years  ago. 
The  State  has  had  to  have  its  resident  engineer,  its  deputy 
engineer  and  its  inspectors  on  these  jobs,  with  the  result  that 
expenses  pile  up  upon  the  State  while  incompetent  contractors, 
without  money  in  the  first  place,  are  permitted  to  go  along 
in  violation  of  their  contracts  not  only  week  by  week,  but 
month  by  month  and  year  by  year.  This  proves  also  the 
necessity  for  a  business-like  administration  that  will  get  the 
State's  work  done  on  time  by  competent  contractors,  and 
under  such  conditions  that  responsible  men  will  bid  for  the 
work  and  crowd  out  those  persons,  favored  in  one  way  or 
another,  who  have  behind  them  neither  money  nor  ability  to 
carry  out  in  good  faith  the  contracts  which  they  have  assumed. 

On  March  24th,  of  this  year.  Road  No.  939  was  accepted. 
It  was  let  June  17th,  1911,  to  be  finished  November  ist,  1912. 
The  engineering  charges,  at  least  from  1913,  should  not  have 
been  paid  by  the  State,  but  they  were.  There  are  roads  of 
1912  and  1913  in  the  same  way.  It  is  so  of  1914.  The  loss  to 
the  State  in  this  shady  way  of  administration  since  the  admin- 
istration of  Governor  Hughes  down  to  this  time,  would  build 
all  the  State  roads  in  almost  any  county;  but,  aside  from  this, 
the  entire  system  of  engineering  and  inspection  is  a  political 
inheritance  that  needs  entire  reformation. 

There  are  men  in  the  service  wholly  incompetent,  who  were 
put  there  in  other  times  for  political  purposes  and  afterwards 
shoved  into  the  classified  service.  There  are  men  also  who 
are  wholly  unnecessary,  and  who  simply  add  to  the  cost  of 
engineering  and  inspection.    As  new  administrations  come 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


41 


new  men  go  on  the  staff,  either  in  the  division  offices  or  in  the 
field.  It  is  a  constant  system  of  disorganization  bound  to 
continue  poor  roads  and  pile  up  overhead  expenses.  In  the 
last  year  of  Commissioner  Carlisle,  1914,  on  construction  and 
inspection  v^^ork  the  overhead  charges  both  on  nev^  and  old 
roads  v^^ere  13  per  cent,  of  the  nearly  $16,000,000  expended. 

Last  year  276  miles  of  highways  were  resurfaced  or  recon- 
structed, and  2,086  miles  received  a  coating  of  bituminous 
material,  crushed  stone  and  sand,  a  total  of  2,362  miles. 

Let  us  take  the  figures  of  expenses  and  see  where  it  all 
leads  to : 

276  miles  of  highway  resurfaced  or  reconstructed,  at  an 
average  cost  of  approximately  $5,471  per  mile;  total 


expenditures  and  obligations  under  this  item   $1,510,112 

2.086  miles  of  highway  given  a  surface  treatm^ent  of  bitum- 
inous material  and  cover  of  sand,  fine  gravel,  iron 
ore  tailings,  or  fine  crushed  stone,  at  an  average  cost 
of  $419  per  mile;  total  expenditures  and  obligations 

under  this  item    874,137 

Expended  for  material  and  temporary  labor  in  making 
miscellaneous  repairs  and  supplying  material  for  main- 
tenance   998,462 


Total   $3,382,711 

Expended  for  engineering,  supervision,  inspection  and  ex- 
penses incidental  thereto    $334,724 


Here  we  have,  not  on  NEW  ROADS,  but  on  highways 
already  built  and  only  resurfaced,  or  otherwise  repaired  by 
contract,  engineering  charges  and  supervision  of  more  than 
10  per  cent,  of  the  cost,  and  the  case  is  really  much  worse, 
for,  of  the  material  in  the  item  of  $998,462,  much  was  turned 
over  to  patrolmen,  and  their  salaries  in  addition,  which  does 
not  appear  above,  amounts  to  $403,047.  When  we  remember 
that  the  cost  of  repairing  streets  in  The  Bronx  and  Brooklyn, 
taking  16  feet  wide  the  same  as  State  highways,  with  asphalt 
or  granite  does  not  exceed  $350  a  mile,  while  only  surface 
treatment  cost  the  State  $419  a  mile,  exclusive  of  engineering 
^  and  other  costs,  the  necessity  for  a  radical  reorganization  must 
speak  loudly  to  the  taxpayer. 

When  it  cost  $577  a  mile  to  maintain  gravel  roads  in  New 
York  State  last  year,  against  sheet  asphalt  at  much  less  than 
the  cost  in  New  York  City,  it  must  appeal  to  the  Legislature 
that  the  time  has  come  to  change  our  types  of  state  roads, 
and  especially  our  repair  system. 


42      WHAT'S  fHE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


A  BIT  OF  POLITICAL  WASTE. 

There  will  be  on  the  State  highways  this  year  about  750 
patrolmen  and  the  appropriation  for  them  is  $436,825.  Last 
year  there  were  728  patrolmen  who  were  paid  $403,047.  These 
men  have  stretches  of  State  highways  which  average  six  miles 
in  length.  They  are  supposed  to  keep  the  ditches  on  the  sides 
clear  for  drainage  and  to  fill  up  any  ruts  or  holes  they  may 
find  on  the  surface  of  the  road.  They  do  not  work  in  the 
winter  months,  the  average  time  being  about  seven  months 
in  the  year. 

These  patrolmen  are  the  costliest  bit  of  political  graft  the 
State  has  on  its  hands,  and  no  more  striking  illustration  of  how 
the  taxpayers'  money  is  wasted  could  be  offered  to  the  reader. 
The  patrolmen  are  usually  members  of  the  town  or  county 
political  committee,  or  else  the  brother,  son  or  cousin.  The 
job  is  purely  political.  When  the  Democrats  come  in  the 
Republican  patrolmen  go  out,  and  vice  versa.  The  men  in 
each  county  are  named  by  the  State  Committeeman  with  the 
assistance  of  the  Senator  and  the  member  of  Assembly,  if 
they  be  of  the  prevailing  majority  party.  The  lists  from  each 
county  are  furnished  to  the  Commissioner  of  Highways,  who 
obediently  appoints  the  men  whose  names  are  on  the  paper. 
It  is  the  most  coveted  non-civil  service  cheap  political  pap  in 
the  State,  and  much  better  than  a  similar  type  on  the  canal 
system  of  the  State.  If  the  $400,000  and  more  paid  these  men 
was  all  that  happened,  perhaps  the  taxpayers  could  stand  it, 
so  that  the  cross-roads  politicians  might  remain  happy,  but  the 
situation  is  much  more  costly  for  the  people. 

These  patrolmen,  so  called,  have,  in  nearly  all  cases,  a 
horse  and  wagon,  and  are  furnished  with  stone,  asphalt,  tar, 
heating  kettles  and  tools.  This  material  amounts  to  $400,000 
more  a  year  or,  altogether,  more  than  $800,000  for  the  cost 
of  the  so-called  patrol  system.  The  question  might  be  asked 
here  if  the  State  Highway  Department  in  1915  under  contract 
resurfaced  263  miles  of  State  roads,  and  let  contracts  for  fur- 
nishing and  applying  the  bituminous  materials  and  stone  for 
1,346  miles  of  highways,  making  a  total  of  1,609  miles,  why 
the  necessity  of  268  patrolmen  on  these  roads  at  a  cost  of 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


43- 


about  $169,000?  This  refinement  of  political  larceny 
and  governmental  stupidity  has  cost  the  State  millions, 
and  will  continue  to  cost  it  more  millions  unless  a  governor 
and  a  legislature  amend  the  law  and  stop  the  whole  miserable 
business.  The  patrolman  finds  a  rut,  or  a  depression,  or  a 
break  in  the  road,  that  is,  assuming  he  is  on  the  job  and  half- 
way efficient.  He  proceeds  to  loosen  the  edges  about  the 
break,  fills  the  void  with  broken  stone  and  tar,  puts  a  few 
screenings  on  top,  levels  and  presses  the  surface  as  best  he 
can,  and  moves  along. 

This  is  labor,  stone,  tar,  asphalt,  oil  and  screenings  prac- 
tically thrown  away.  It  is  a  case  of  gross  inefficiency  and 
wastefulness  by  the  State.  This  temporary  repair  is  of  no 
value.  Motor  travel  or  wagon  travel  pulls  out  the  loose  stone 
which,  of  course,  cannot  be  properly  bound  to  the  road  by  the 
methods  used  by  the  patrolman.  The  highway  begins  to  un- 
ravel, the  conditions  grow  worse,  and  then  the  costly  repairs 
are  made  by  contract  over  great  stretches  of  the  road. 

To  attempt  to  fix  a  bituminous  macadam  road  in  this  way, 
or  a  waterbound  macadam,  is  nothing  short  of  a  crime.  It  is 
simply  politics  playing  with  the  treasury  of  the  State,  in  which 
the  stone  Aian,  the  tar  man,  the  hardware  man,  the  freight  man 
and  the  patrolman  all  get  a  bit  of  money.  With  a  county  or 
State  repair  system  and  an  efficient  equipment  for  oiling,  big 
damage  would  be  prevented  and  small  damage  promptly 
repaired.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  repairs,  or  maintenance — 
as  engineers  call  it — of  State  roads  cost  $4,210,575  last  year, 
and  would  have  cost  this  year,  1916,  more  than  $5,000,000,  if 
the  requests  of  the  Highway  Department  had  been  granted 
by  the  Legislature.  So  that  a  direct  tax  might  be  avoided 
in  this  Governorship  Year  the  maintenance  appropriation  was 
reduced  $1,600,000.  While  this  did  help  the  avoidance  of  a 
direct  tax,  what  will  become  of  the  miles  of  roads  that  should 
be  repaired  this  year  at  a  cost  of  about  $600  per  mile?  The 
answer  is  very  clear.  While  it  may  appear  that  $1,600,000 
cut  out  of  the  maintenance  appropriation  was  a  saving,  it 
really  means  that  next  year's  repair  budget  will  have  to  be 
vastly  increased,  due  to  the  failure  to  prevent  deterioration 
and  destruction  of  many  miles  of  roads.   The  highways  which 


44      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 

could  have  been  repaired  this  year  at  $600  a  mile  will  co€t 
at  least  twice  as  much  in  1917.  Such  is  our  Government! 
In  this  cost  of  $4,210,575  for  repairs  last  year  is  not  counted 
the  expenses  of  division  offices,  rentals,  stationery,  automo- 
bile hire,  railroad  fares  and  other  supplies? 


Repair  cost  on  the  State  Highway  system 
has  jumped  $2,000,000  a  year  in  three  years. 
With  the  whole  system  completed  in  1920,  the 
"repairs"  at  this  rate  will  cost  $10,000,000  a 
year,  and  will  have  to  be  raised  by  direct  tax, 
of  which  New  York  City  will  pay  $6,800,000 
unless  reform  in  the  Highway  system  comes  at 
once. 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


-15 


ROAD  CONSTRUCTION. 

In  Wayne  County,  Michigan,  the  cost  of  maintaining  130 
miles  of  concrete  highways  in  the  last  five  years  averaged  $30 
per  mile  per  year.  Traffic  conditions  in  Wayne  County  v^ould 
approximate  very  closely  those  on  the  150  miles  of  water- 
bound  macadam  highways  in  New  York  State  which  cost 
$1,444  per  mile  per  year  for  the  last  five  years,  or  nearly 
fifty  times  as  much.  In  spite  of  the  poor  showing  of  water- 
bound  macadam  in  New  York,  the  department  laid  in  19 14 
and  last  year  947  miles  of  waterbound  macadam,  and  is  going 
ahead  with  the  same  policy  this  year.  Only  380  miles  of  first- 
class  concrete  were  laid  in  New  York  State  highways  in  two 
years. 

The  good  showing  made  by  concrete  roads  in  other  States 
would  suggest  they  are  the  best  type  for  roads  outside  cities 
as  a  rule,  as,  while  the  first  cost  is  high,  their  life  is  at  least 
ten  to  twelve  years,  and,  if  properly  built,  the  maintenance 
charges  less  than  $100  a  year.  The  life  of  a  macadam  road 
waterbound,  or  of  a  bituminous  macadam,  penetration  method, 
in  this  State  doesn't  average  four  years.  We  have  discovered, 
at  least,  tj^at  these  are  two  types  we  don't  want. 

Our  first  experience  with  concrete  roads  was  very  bad. 
They  went  to  pieces  after  the  first  season.  It  is  probable, 
however,  that  the  contractor  went  short  on  cement  and  long 
on  political  contributions.  It  is  certain  that  the  road  engineers 
were  incompetent,  merely  political  hacks  and,  in  some  cases, 
corrupt.  The  concrete  roads  so  far  finished  under  Governor 
Whitman's  Commissioner,  Mr.  Duffey,  look  to  be  splendid 
examples  of  road-building,  and  promise  to  wear  well,  with  a 
cost  of  maintenance  not  more  than  $150  per  year  per  mile. 

The  second  class  concrete  roads  with  a  bituminous  top  in 
this  State  have  proved  a  complete  failure  up  to  date.  The 
.maintenance  cost  per  mile  per  year  is  $1,050  on  the  295  miles 
already  built.  That  is  another  type  the  State  doesn't  want. 
The  Smithtown-Port  Jefferson  road  in  Suffolk,  11.59  miles,  is 
now  being  built  at  a  cost  of  $172,657.35.  This  is  at  the  rate  of 
$15,000  a  mile.  This  is  a  new  type  of  road,  adopted  by  the 
late  Mr.  John  N.  Carlisle,  and  is  what  is  known  under  the 


4G      ir HAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


State  specification  as  hot  mixing  method,  type  one.  This 
mixture  of  stone  and  asphalt  is  being  laid  on  a  concrete 
foundation.  The  road  is  not  yet  finished,  though  it  should 
have  been  completed  last  year.  I  predict  complete  failure  for 
this  new  style  of  bituminous  mixed  top.  A  fine  and  durable 
road  could  have  been  built  at  much  less  cost. 


The  average  life  of  a  State  Highway  built 
under  the  Hughes  administration  was  three 
and  a  half  years.  The  average  life  of  the  new 
Highways  built  under  Dix  is  two  and  a  half 
years.  The  "repairs"  in  some  instances  cost 
as  much  as  the  new  roads.  The  systems  under 
Hughes  and  Dix  were  bad  both  as  to  material 
and  labor.  There  is  practically  nothing  to 
show  for  the  first  $50,000,000  of  Highway 
bonds. 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


47 


ROAD  MEMORANDA. 

The  great  essential  of  road  maintenance,  both  in  money 
saving  and  in  durability  of  work,  is  to  keep  constantly  renew- 
ing the  surface  material  which  is  worn  to  dust  or  to  detritus 
by  traffic  and  weather  conditions.  Care  of  the  surface  with 
special  attention  to  drainage  are  the  chief  elements  of 
successful  and  economical  highway  maintenance.  A  road 
where  the  surface  is  kept  good  and  the  cover  not 
undermined  by  water,  will  naturally  wear  much  longer, 
and  more  evenly,  than  a  poorly-kept  highway,  which  lacks 
proper  supply  of  stone  at  the  right  time,  and  begins  to  disin- 
tegrate to  the  point  where  repairs  are  costly.  It  follows,  then, 
that  a  highway  properly  looked  after  is  maintained  at  less 
cost  than  a  road  which  is  repaired  only  when  the  spirit  moves 
or  money  is  available  under  some  legislative  act. 

The  best  road  engineers  in  the  world,  or  surveyors  as  they 
are  more  generally  called  in  Europe,  are  in  France,  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  they  having  had  the  experience  of  genera- 
tions of  road  builders  plus  the  knowledge  acquired  by  them- 
selves in  modern  highway  improvements.  They  regard  the 
maintenan^ce  of  a  road  as  far  more  important  than  its  original 
construction.  They  have  been  at  pains  to  gather  laboriously 
for  government  agencies  and  for  county  boards  the  percentage 
of  wear  and  tear,  computed  on  traffic  conditions. 

On  the  most-traveled  highways  outside  the  big  cities  and 
towns  of  England,  Ireland,  Wales  and  France,  the  percentage 
of  wear  from  traffic  and  weather  is  computed  at  one-half  an 
inch  of  the  surface  per  year  on  the  average.  This  would  not 
apply  to  all  the  roads  per  mile,  but  to  the  wearing  surface 
carrying  the  traffic,  or  say  to  one-half  the  face  of  the  highway. 
The  purpose  in  all  these  countries  is  to  restore  that  half-inch 
each  year. 

In  England,  the  renovation  of  a  mile  of  country  road  each 
year  from  1892  to  1902  averaged  sixty-four  cubic  yards  of 
material.  It  ran  on  some  roads  as  low  as  forty-two  cubic  yards 
and  on  some  as  high  as  one  hundred  and  thirty-two  yards.  In 
1910,  the  last  obtainable  official  figures,  the  average  had 
gone  up  to  ninety-eight  cubic  yards  to  each  mile  of  mainten- 


48      WHAT'S  The  matter  with  new  YORK? 


ance,  the  lowest  being  sixty-four  cubic  yards  and  the  highest 
one  hundred  and  forty-nine  cubic  yards  near  towns  and  cities 
having  automobile  traffic  of  some  quantity. 

In  France,  where  especial  care  is  given  to  the  drainage  of 
roadbeds,  as  well  as  to  the  general  upkeep,  the  cost  of  labor 
per  mile  is  less  than  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  but  it  is 
noteworthy  that  the  amount  of  material  per  mile  for  mainten- 
ance runs  very  close  to  England.  The  average  rate  of  new 
material  per  mile  was  eighty-six  cubic  yards  a  mile  in  1S92, 
excluding  the  well-traveled  roads  leading  to  Paris.  In  1909, 
this  had  increased  to  one  hundred  and  three  cubic  yards  a  mile, 
*  running  as  lov/  as  sixty-one  and  as  high  as  one  hundred  and 
seventy-four  yards  to  the  mile. 

But  with  the  increased  use  of  material,  due  to  modern 
traffic  on  the  roads,  there  has  been  a  great  decrease  in  labor 
cost  owing  to  the  introduction  of  machinery  and  up-to-date 
methods.  In  London,  the  cost  of  labor  per  mile  decreased 
forty-seven  per  cent,  from  1901  to  1909.  The  figures  every- 
where showed  less  labor  cost.  In  France,  twenty  years  ago, 
the  proportion  for  material  was  fifty-three  against  forty-seven 
for  labor  of  all  kinds  from  quarry  to  road.  In  1909,  labor 
averaged  twenty-six  per  cent,  of  the  cost  of  maintenance,  so 
that  in  all  these  countries  the  roads,  under  a  splendid  system, 
were  being  kept  in  shape  at  a  much  less  cost  per  mile  than  ten 
years  before,  when  less  work  was  done. 

While  France  has  the  best  system,  almost  on  military  lines, 
of  road  maintenance  of  its  highways,  it  is  not  feasible  to  com- 
pare costs  here  with  there.  The  men  work  thirteen  hours  a 
day  in  the  summer,  and  from  sunrise  to  sunset  in  other 
periods,  with  two  hours  for  meals.  It  is  a  part  of  their  busi- 
ness to  prevent  damage  to  roads  by  snow  in  the  winter,  and, 
in  fact,  their  attendance  is  compulsory  in  periods  of  snow  and 
rain,  so  as  to  keep  all  culverts  clear.  If  several  men  are  sent 
out  of  their  cantons  to  other  roads,  they  get  one-fifth  more 
pay  and  also  lodging  money.  The  best  man  in  each  canton 
receives  prize  money  each  year.  These  men  are  excused  in 
batches  to  help  harvest  the  crops,  but  without  pay. 

Their  labor,  however,  cannot  be  compared  with  that  here; 
and  England,  with  Ireland,  furnish  the  best  examples.  In  the 


THE  STATE  HIGHWAYS 


49 


British  Islands  the  work  is  on  a  business  basis,  as  every 
laborer,  in  most  of  the  districts,  must  keep  his  road  journal, 
showing  what  work  he  did  in  each  day  of  the  week.  The 
cost  of  maintenance,  both  of  material  and  labor,  naturally 
varies  in  many  sections,  running  from  $104  per  mile  per  year 
to  $214  per  mile  per  year  on  highways  outside  cities  and 
towns.  The  average  cost,  taking  the  counties  of  Dublin, 
Wicklow  and  Kerry,  in  which  there  are  magnificent  roads, 
was  in  191 1  per  mile  the  sum  of  $177.20.  The  average  cost  of 
maintenance  on  the  same  type  of  roads  in  New  York  State 
was  $1,055  per  mile  per  year,  including  recently-built  roads 
on  which  there  was  little  work  to  do.  When  it  is  considered 
that  these  Irish  roads  are  all  old  and  New  York's  water-bound 
macadam  comparatively  new,  and  in  some  cases  wholly  new, 
the  comparison  is  startling.  It  is  a  case  of  business  methods 
minus  politics  against  non-business  methods  plus  politics. 

In  England,  a  yearly  maintenance  charge  of  £40  to  the 
mile,  or  $200,  is  usual  near  cities  and  towns,  in  a  few  cases 
going  above  that;  but  on  the  less-traveled  roads  it  falls  to 
£25,  or  $125,  per  mile  per  year.  It  must  be  held  in  mind  that 
in  France  all  the  national  roads  are  in  constant  repair,  as  in 
Great  Briton  and  Ireland,  thus  keeping  up  a  maximum  cost 
with  minimum  of  wear,  while  in  New  York  State  road  after 
road  is  neglected  until  near  the  period  of  its  entire  wreckage. 
With  all  the  tremendous  expenditures,  running  into  millions, 
there  is  not  enough  maintenance  money  to  go  around  each 
year  under  the  present  and  costly  haphazard  system  in  the 
Empire  State. 


50      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 
MONEY  MAD  ON  AGRICULTURE. 


Chart  showing  how 
the  Agricultural  De- 
partment with  its 
secondary  school 
fads  has  dug  into  the 
Stati  Treasury. 


Cost  of  "DEPaw- 

»KC^E/VSt  For. 
\<^\S  0>iE<^  1900 

38434 


Increase  in  pop- 
ulation of  State, 
34.5  per  cent., 
1900  to  1915. 


Increases  in  the 
value  of  all  real 
property,  119.24 
per  cent..  1900  to 
1915. 


Increase  in  all 
expenditures,  in- 
cluding new  high- 
ways and  new 
canal,  266.66  per 
cent,  1900  to 
1915. 


COST 

00 


^9 


PLAIN  WASTE  OF  MONE\ 


51 


AGRICULTURE. 

No  branch  of  the  State  Government  has  run  out  of  finan- 
cial bounds  with  the  speed  of  the  Agricultural  Department. 
What  is  much  more  certain  obligations  have  been  undertaken 
in  the  building  and  establishing  of  Secondary  Agricultural 
Schools  and  other  adventures  in  experimental  propositions 
which  threaten  to  swamp  the  Treasury  if  not  stopped  by  re- 
organization and  consolidation. 

In  the  last  six  years  the  land  promoters,  fad  promoters  and 
sinecure  job  promoters  have  landed  with  both  feet  in  the 
Agricultural  Department,  and  so  it  is  not  at  all  surprising  now 
to  find  them  teaching  music,  mathematics,  higher  English, 
home  cooking  and  other  interesting  things  to  the  young  man 
and  the  few  young  women  in  these  new  secondary  schools. 
It  is  not  surprising  either  to  find  that  young  men  from  other 
States  are  taking  advantage  of  what  they  can't  find  at  home 
and  are  doing  so  without  paying  for  tuition.  Nearly  every 
branch  school  outside  Cornell  is  overloaded  with  sinecures, 
and  there  is  no  situation  in  the  State  that  ought  to  appeal 
more  to  those  who  would  stop  wasteful  expenditures  and  cut 
the  steadily  mounting  budgets. 

In  the  ten  years  from  1896  to  1905,  in  which  period  there 
was  steady  progress  in  the  orderly  development  of  the  Agri- 
cultural Department,  the  total  expenditures  were  $6,200,000. 
The  increase  in  the  annual  appropriation  in  1905  over  1896 
was  $316,000,  or  about  73  per  cent,  in  ten  years. 

In  the  next  ten  years  ending  October,  1915,  the  total  ap- 
propriations were  $18,000,000.  In  1905,  the  Department  cost 
$746,000;  in  1915,  $3,221,000,  and  the  end  is  not  yet  unless  a 
business  Governor  puts  his  mind  upon  this  proposition. 

Of  course,  politics  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  that  is  wrong 
in  the  development  of  Agricultural  work  in  this  State.  Even 
^  where  the  money  is  appropriated  for  the  just  conservation  of 
our  farm  products  the  proper  results  are  not  obtained.  This 
great  bureau  has  been  the  playground  of  politicians  and  there 
has  been  no  real  attempt  to  promote  efficiency. 

In  four  years,  that  is  from  191 2,  there  have  been  three 
different  heads  of  the  Department,  and  there  may  be  another 


52      WHAT'S  The  matter  with  new  YORK? 


next  year  should  the  Democrats  win  the  State.  It  is  this 
sort  of  thing  that  breaks  down  Government  in  New  York, 
causes  the  misuse  of  money  and  brings  about  the  padded  pay- 
rolls. Our  next  candidates  for  Governor  will  go  up  and  down 
the  State  next  Fall  as  valiant  protectors  of  the  Treasury, 
howling  for  economy,  just  as  the  last  candidates  did;  but  that 
will  be  about  the  end  of  it,  for  no  man  elected  in  recent  years 
seems  big  enough  to  use  his  great  powers  in  putting  the  knife 
in  as  far  as  it  will  go  in  cutting  off  the  excrescence  of  State 
Government. 

After  Governor  Whitman  was  fairly  settled  in  office  the 
Legislature  appointed  a  committee  and  gave  it  $50,000  to  dig 
deep  into  the  payroll  waste,  and  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Re- 
search in  New  York  sent  up  some  men  to  aid  this  supposedly 
honest  job.  After  a  short  survey  of  the  field  a  preliminary 
report  was  filed  in  1915,  stating  that  $2,000,000  in  salaries 
alone  could  be  cut  away  without  hurting  any  agency  of  the 
State.  This  body  of  graft  hunters  was  known  as  the  Horton 
Committee  and  in  March  of  this  year,  1916,  its  members  were 
telling  how  they  had  discovered  men  on  the  payrolls  who 
never  worked;  offices  duplicated  and  never  necessary;  labor- 
ers carried  on  department  lists  who  didn't  labor;  sinecures 
everywhere  up  and  down  the  State.  There  was  real  excite- 
ment in  Albany  when  the  story  got  out  that  the  committee 
was  ready  to  report  a  most  startling  expose  of  conditions. 
Telegrams  flashed  by  the  score.  Republican  leaders  came 
hurrying  to  Albany  by  the  dozen. 

They  did  their  work  well.  In  a  few  hours  it  was  common 
knowledge  in  the  hotels  that  the  complete  report  of  the  Hor- 
ton Committee  would  not  be  submitted  until  after  the  appro- 
priation bills  for  the  coming  fiscal  year  had  passed  and  been 
signed.  It  would  never  do  in  a  Presidential  and  Governor- 
ship year  to  smash  1,500  men  off  the  payroll  and  adopt  a 
standardization  of  salaries  by  grades,  which  would  mean  real 
economy  and  the  end  of  political  favoritism.  So  the  Horton 
Committee  brought  in  a  report  suggesting  how  salaries  should 
be  graded  and  offices  designated.  Then  it  asked  leave  to  sit 
again.    But  it  did  say  this  after  more  than  a  year  of  labor: 


AGRICULTURE 


53 


"The  investigation  and  findings  of  the  Senate  Committee 
on  Civil  Service  furnish  convincing  evidence  that  the  business 
of  the  State  is  transacted  with  a  CONSIDERABLE 
AMOUNT  OF  WASTE.  The  Committee  estimated  in  its 
preliminary  report  of  April  gth,  1915,  that  the  payroll  cost 
could  be  reduced  BY  AT  LEAST  TWO  MILLION  DOL- 
LARS through  proper  reorganizaztion  of  methods  and  simpli- 
fication of  work,  of  which  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  could 
be  immediately  effected.  The  Committee,  after  exhaustive  in- 
vestigation, finds  that  this  estimate  WAS  CONSERVA- 
TIVE." 

No  Republican  and  no  Democrat  in  the  Senate  got  up  to 
ask  why  these  offices  should  not  be  abolished  at  once  and  the 
payrolls  purged.  The  $50,000  report  of  more  than  800  printed 
pages  was  ordered  sent  out  as  a  public  document,  the  money 
was  appropriated  for  all  these  unidentified  and  useless  places 
and  the  Legislature  adjourned.  This  little  incident  affecting 
the  taxpayers  so  vitally  serves  to  illustrate  why  the  cost  of 
administration  in  the  Agricultural  Department  goes  skyhigh. 
Let  us  take  good  Republican  authority,  the  Hon.  Eugene  M. 
Travis,  Comptroller  of  the  State,  who  does  his  work  well  and 
would  mak^  a  tip-top  Governor — a  party  man  to  be  sure  but 
bound  to  get  results  for  the  taxpayer  as  he  is  now  getting 
them  in  the  office  he  holds.  He  made,  as  was  his  right,  an 
investigation  of  expenditures  in  several  departments.  Of 
course,  all  he  can  do  is  to  tell  the  Legislature  and  the  Gov- 
ernor what  he  finds. 

In  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  that  is,  apart  from  the 
schools  and  other  appropriations  for  farm  work,  he  reported 
that  there  could  be  a  saving  of  $100,436.50  out  of  a  total  item 
of  $472,808.33  for  purely  administrative  work.  That  is,  more 
than  20  per  cent,  could  be  saved  without  hurting  the  efficiency 
required  in  government. 

"Unnecessary  and  unwarranted"  was  the  way  he  described 
it.  Well,  let  us  show  a  little  more  taken  from  the  official 
records  in  the  Agricultural  Department: 

Year.  Investigators  Laborers. 

1910    $4,045.22  $16,501.74 

1911    3»676.44  15,712.24 


54     WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORKf 


It  need  not  seem  strange  then,  going  back  to  igio  for 
comparison  again,  to  find  what  has  happened  since. 

In  igio  all  agricultural  appropriations  .  .  .  .$1,575,956 
In  1914  all  agricultural  appropriations  ....  2,547,372 
In  1915  all  agricultural  appropriations  ....  3,221,613 

For  every  dollar  expended  in  19 10  there  was  the  sum  of 
more  than  two  dollars  expended  in  the  fiscal  year 
1915.  That  the  financial  condition  of  the  State  does 
not  warrant  this  growth — and  unregulated  growth — in  agri- 
cultural cost,  hardly  needs  to  be  said,  but  in  addition  we  have 
embarked  in  a  course  of  farm  education  without  any  definite 
policy,  which,  if  not  checked  forthwith,  is  sure  to  saddle  us 
with  costly  buildings,  land  far  above  market  values,  and  ad- 
ministrative expenses  wholly  indefensible.  Let  us  look  at 
what  is  happening  in  this  largely  patchwork  system  of  farm 
educational  work. 

In  191 1  the  Agricultural  Schools  received  from  the  State 
$463,988.  These  were  Cornell  University,  Alfred  University, 
St.  Lawrence  University  and  the  New  Morrisville  School  of 
of  Agriculture,  the  latter  in  process  of  building,  and  destined 
to  be  the  forerunner  of  others  promoted  by  certain  localities. 
This  is  the  way  these  appropriations  have  grown: 

IN  1911  FOR  AGRICULTURAL  SCHOOLS..  $463,988 
IN  1914  FOR  AGRICULTURAL  SCHOOLS..  1,265,908 
IN  1915  (WHITMAN  FIRST  BUDGET)    1,436,431 

It  will  be  seen  that  for  every  dollar  spent  by  the  State  in 
191 1  for  Agricultural  teaching  in  the  special  schools  more 
than  three  dollars  is  now  going  over  the  dam.  Cornell  Col- 
lege had  for  its  Agricultural  work  last  year,  which  includes 
the  veterinary  course,  $796,753,  against  $314,862  in  191 1.  In 


1912 

1913 
1914 


5,060.91 

11,763-13 
19,850.54 


32,839.52 
70,878.07 
74,342.95 


AGRICULTURE 


55 


1914  Cornell  got  $930,000,  and  in  1913  a  total  of  $887,000,  but 
a  good  bit  of  this  was  for  new  agricultural  college  plant.  In 
looking  over  the  items  of  expense  I  find  only  45  stenographers 
employed  in  the  Cornell  College  branch  of  agricultural  devel- 
opment; that  is  one  to  about  every  teacher  and  assistant 
teacher. 

It  was  in  191 1  and  1912  that  the  rapid  development  came 
about  which  is  now  on  its  headlong  course  to  somewhere  or 
nowhere.  It  was  decided  to  have  a  school  of  forestry  in 
Syracuse  University  to  be  paid  for  out  of  State  Agricultural 
funds.  The  first  appropriation  was  $36,000.  In  1915  it  was 
$145,000.  In  the  same  period  the  Legislature  appropriated 
money  for  a  school  of  agriculture  in  Schoharie.  The  Demo- 
crats of  that  tight  little  hop-growing  County,  finding  a  Demo- 
cratic Legislature  and  Governor,  couldn't  see  why  they  should 
be  overlooked  inasmuch  as  Governor  Hughes  had  given  rock- 
ribbed  Republicans  of  nearby  Madison  County  a  new  farm 
school  in  Morrisville.  So  a  tidy  bit  of  land  was  bought  in 
Cobleskill  and  while  they  haven't  got  steadily  on  their  legs 
there  as  yet,  this  remote  place  in  the  smiling  hills  of  the  last 
Catskill  ranges  has  in  the  appropriation  bill  this  year  items 
for  a  janitor  who  will  eventually,  with  assistants,  care  for  the 
buildings,  a  watchman,  teamsters,  laborers,  travelling  expenses 
for  the  trustees,  a  secretary  and  bookkeeper,  a  stenographer  and 
an  instructor  in  history,  English  and  arithmetic.  It  is  also 
proposed  to  start  right  into  teaching  courses  as  the  bill  calls 
for  instructors  in  botany,  animal  industry,  horse  diseases  and 
two  teachers  in  horticulture.  The  item  for  care  of  the 
modest  buildings  is  almost  as  much  as  for  the  teaching  staff. 

Delaware  County  adjoins  Schoharie  and  there  were  great 
doings  in  that  picturesque  bit  of  New  York  when  it  was  found 
Schoharie  was  to  have  a  farm  school  at  State  expense.  So 
a  bill  was  put  through  and  made  into  law  to  have  a  State 
'School  of  Agriculture  and  Domestic  Science  at  Delhi,  where 
there  is  a  stub  end  of  the  Ontario  and  Western  road,  built  to 
carry  boarders  in  the  Summer  to  the  farms  on  the  rolling 
lands  along  the  Delaware  River.  This  new  school  got  $42,- 
000  to  start  with  last  year,  and  in  the  coming  budget  there  is 
provision  for  a  director  at  $2,500,  a  stenographer,  a  janitor 


56      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


and  assistant,  three  laborers  for  the  proposed  farm,  $10,000 
for  equipment,  $1,200  for  a  farm  superintendent  and  appro- 
priations for  teachers  of  chemistry,  dairying,  biology,  domestic 
science,  farm  mechanics,  poultry  raising,  soil  conditions  and 
for  a  few  assistant  teachers.  Thus  is  a  nice  foundation  laid 
in  Madison,  Schoharie  and  Delaware,  all  three  Counties  in 
one  small  division  of  the  State,  for  future  pickings  from  a 
generous  treasury.  The  teachers  in  Delhi  are  all  rated  at 
$1,200  each  per  year  as  a  beginning. 

Let  not  the  reader  think  this  ends  the  race  for  schools  in 
every  county,  nor  the  desire  to  extend  the  curriculum.  The 
Morrisville  Agricultural  School,  now  five  years  old,  has  as 
items  in  the  appropriation  bill,  an  instructor  in  music,  an 
instructor  in  piano,  an  instructor  in  domestic  science  and  an- 
other in  domestic  art  and  one  in  shop  work.  The  general 
director  is  down  for  $2,700  and  his  staff  includes  a  secretary  at 
$1,500,  a  clerk  and  secretary  at  $1,200  and  a  stenographer  at 


It  may  be  interesting  to  know  that  counting  the  laborers, 
teamsters,  head  janitors,  watchman,  farm  superintendent  and 
general  staff  there  is  almost  one  employee  to  every  pupil  and 
the  several  instructors  get  from  $1,500  down  to  $1,000  each. 

The  prize  agricultural  school,  however,  among  the  new 
ones  is  on  Long  Island.  The  canny  gentlemen  down  there 
helped  along  the  Schoharie  and  Delaware  County  propositions 
with  the  result  that  Governor  Dix  looked  kindly  upon  the 
Long  Islanders  and  some  gentlemen  with  land  to  sell  beamed 
their  appreciation.  The  result  up  to  date  for  the  new  school 
of  agriculture  on  Long  Island  is: 


In  the  present  appropriation  bill  there  are  items  for  one 
director  at  $2,700,  secretary  $1,500,  stenographer  $900,  four 
heads  of  departments  at  $2,000  each,  a  dozen  instructors  be- 
ginning with  $1,800,  a  janitor  at  $1,020,  with  two  assistants, 
one  at  $780  and  one  at  $720,  a  carpenter  at  $1,080,  an  engi- 
neer at  $1,500,  two  assistant  engineers  and  firemen  at  $1,020 


$840. 


IN  1914 
IN  1915 


$101,249.64 

273'05942 


AGRICULTURE 


each  and  so  down  the  Hst  to  laborers  at  $560  each.  This 
Long  Island  farm  is  about  the  rawest  job  of  all  pulled  off  as 
Long  Island  is  the  very  last  place  for  anything  in  the  way  of 
farming  outside  of  vegetables  and  peach  growing.  Much  of  the 
land  already  is  going  out  of  cultivation  owing  to  purchases  of 
big  tracts  by  wealthy  men  and  the  constant  growth  of  town 
and  village  population. 

Of  course  the  promoters  say  the  school  is  eventually  to  be 
a  great  institution  for  all  the  State;  that  the  project  had  been 
discussed  for  years ;  that  the  site  happens  to  be  on  Long 
Island  only  because  the  people  down  there  were  wide  awake; 
that,  indeed,  it  will  justify  itself  not  for  anything  it  may  teach 
Long  Islanders  of  potatoes,  cauliflower  and  cranberry  rais- 
ing, the  three  staple  crops  there ,  but  what  it  will  do  here- 
after as  a  rival  of  Cornell.  In  the  meantime,  so  as  not  to  for- 
get the  Northern  tier,  St.  Lawrence  County  having  a  farm 
school.  New  York  has  now  established  a  course  of  agriculture 
in  the  State  Normal  School,  Plattsburgh,  Clinton  County. 

The  greatest  crime  relating  to  these  new  farm  schools  is 
the  creation  of  a  Board  of  Managers  or  trustees  for  each, 
wholly  independent  of  the  State  Agricultural  Department, 
bent  upoif  putting  their  friends  into  the  service  at  any  price 
and  in  almost  any  old  job;  and  few  of  them  with  any  knowl- 
edge of  either  farms  or  the  conditions  that  would  really  make 
for  success  in  an  object  worthy  of  State  aid  as  well  as  State 
pride.  One  of  the  latest  of  these  farm  managers  appointed  is 
well  known  in  the  White  Light  District  of  Broadway,  plays 
poker  almost  as  good  as  he  plays  pinochle,  knows  more  as  3 
first-nighter  about  plays,  good  and  bad,  than  he  will  ever  know 
about  farming;  and  yet  it  is  this  class  of  people  who  are  ap- 
appointed  on  the  Boards  of  Managers  not  only  in  our  Agri- 
cultural Colleges  but  our  State  Hospitals  and  our  State  Chari- 
table institutions.  Some  of  them  never  or  rarely  attend  meet- 
ings, few  of  them  take  any  interest  in  the  management;  but 
the  money,  the  discipline  and  growth  of  all  these  State  insti- 
tutions is  in  their  hands,  with  the  resulting  waste  and  lack 
of  progress.  Erxh  of  these  costly  schools  of  secondary  agri- 
culture is  run  on  its  own  hook  by  its  own  Board  of  Managers. 
There  is  no  co-relation  among  the  schools.    There  is  no  co- 


58      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


operative  effort  on  anything  except  a  cumulative  meeting  of 
the  minds  every  year  to  get  all  possible  from  the  State 
Treasury.  Is  it  not  within  the  facts  to  say  we  have  a  lamb 
stew  government? 

HOW  THE  STATE  DEBT  COMPARES  WITH  POPULA^ 
TION  AND  THE  ASSESSED  VALUATION  OF  ALL 
REAL  AND  PERSONAL  PROPERTY  IN  NEW 
YORK  FROM  1895  TO  AND  INCLUDING  1915 


In  1895  percentage  of  net  debt  to  valuation 
was  nothing.   The  State  then  had  no  debt. 


In  1905  the  net  bonded  debt  of  the  State 
represented  $845  in  each  million  of  assessed 
valuation  and  83  cents  per  capita — net  bonded 
debt,  $6,548,202. 


In  1915  the  net  bonded  debt  of  the  State 
represented  $12,300  in  each  million  of  valua- 
tion and  $15.28  per  capita — net  bonded  debt, 
$148,051,888. 


OFEX  LARCENY  OP  MOXEY 


59 


THE  STATE  PRINTING. 

The  printing  situation  in  this  State  is  an  ever-glowing 
scandal.  By  printing  is  meant  not  only  the  publication  of 
annual  reports  and  the  legislative  bills,  but  also  the  stationery 
supplies,  from  letter  heads  and  blank  books  to  pencils  and 
typewriting  carbons.  Governor  Hughes  attempted  to  do 
something  at  the  instance  of  Senator  Bird,  of  Buffalo,  and 
there  was  put  over  on  his  usually  alert  mind  a  measure  which 
he  made  law,  and  which  actually  was  what  the  Printing  Ring 
desired.  Governor  Sulzer  attempted  to  save  the  State  from 
open  robbery  and  was  plainly  told,  within  the  hearing  of 
several  persons,  that  his  bill  could  not  pass.  The  gentleman 
who  told  him  was  the  Tammany  legislative  leader,  and  he  did 
his  work  with  a  cold  and  brutal  lucidity  that  at  least  did 
credit  to  his  openness  of  mind. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  Mr.  Glynn,  Governor  pro 
tern.,  would  do  anything  to  stop  the  annual  raid  on  the  Treas- 
ury. He  had  obligations  of  the  past  and  possible  commit- 
ments of  the  future  which  ironed  his  political  soul  into  non- 
activity.  But  the  failure  of  Governor  Whitman  and  his  asso- 
ciates to  take  up  this  vital  bit  of  graft  and  destroy  it  passes 
all  understanding,  even  if  it  be  true — and  indeed  it  is  true — 
that  more  than  one  gentleman  of  legislative  status  might  have 
his  further  public  service  cut  short  by  exposure. 

The  author  of  this  book  can  speak  of  State  printing  first 
hand,  and  with  good  credentials.  Mayor  Gaynor  having  asked 
me  to  become  the  head  of  any  one  of  three  departments,  I  told 
him,  in  declining,  that  as  I  had  been  to  much  pains  to  convince 
him  he  should  run  for  Mayor,  I  would  give  him  some  of  my 
time  and  help  him  in  any  work  I  could.  He  accepted  by 
asking  me  to  investigate  the  New  York  City  printing,  includ- 
^  ing  the  publication  of  the  "City  Record."  When  some  assist- 
ance was  suggested,  he  said:  "Name  your  men  and  I'll  appoint 
them  as  fellow  commissioners."  After  the  report  was  finished. 
Mayor  Gaynor  wrote:  "This  is  the  best  bit  of  constructive 
work  I  have  known." 

In  addition  to  the  recovery  into  the  City  Treasury  of  many 
thousands  of  dollars  overpaid,  a  complete  reorganization  came 


60      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


about,  and  Mr.  David  Ferguson  was  appointed  as  the  new 
head.  He  had  been  an  earnest,  discreet,  foreseeing  and  philo- 
sophical reporter  on  the  New  York  "World,"  and  with  a 
directness  of  purpose  worth  a  whole  lot  to  any  business 
institution. 

In  the  last  year  of  Mr.  McClellan's  administration,  the  ex- 
penses of  the  "City  Record,"  which  embraces  all  city  printing, 
advertising  and  stationery,  was  $1,766,951.98. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  record  which  follows: 

DECREASE  IN  1910  (GAYNOR)   $693,361.06 

"  •         "    1911  "    744,176.98 

"    1912  "   648,531.33 


TOTAL  SAVING  IN  THREE  YEARS.  .$2,086,076.37 

All  the  graft  and  waste  was  eliminated  and  is  to-day  under 
the  same  able  Mr.  Ferguson,  to  the  point  where,  since  Mayor 
Gaynor  destroyed  the  City  printing  ring,  the  City  has  saved 
more  than  $4,000,000,  and  with  increased  service  in  stationery 
and  other  supplies. 

Governor  Sulzer,  immediately  after  taking  office,  asked  the 
writer  to  investigate  the  State  printing.  On  condition  that 
my  own  service  should  be  voluntary,  and  without  payment, 
the  work  was  done.  The  legislature  treated  the  investigation, 
as  well  as  the  proposed  new  law  based  upon  the  inquiry,  with 
that  contempt  which  our  Mexican  friends  are  said  to  have  for 
the  "gringoes."  Governor  Sulzer's  Committee  of  Inquiry  into 
State  departments,  appointed  on  the  day  he  took  office,  and 
when  he  was  in  close  touch  with  Mr.  Chas.  F.  Murphy,  com- 
prised John  N.  Carlisle,  Independent  Democrat;  John  H. 
Delaney,  Tammany,  and  H.  Gordon  Lynn,  Tammany.  Even 
the  peculiarly  non-altruistic  mind  of  Mr.  Delaney,  friend  and 
confidant  of  Mr.  C.  F.  Murphy,  joined  in  a  unanimous  report 
to  the  Governor,  in  which  the  Committee  said: 

"The  Printing  Board  is  denied  even  the  power  to  determine 
the  character  of  the  specification  to  be  bid  upon  or  the  quali- 
ties of  the  printing  to  be  ordered  or  contracted  for.  The 
present  printing  law  of  the  State  appears  to  have  been  speci- 


THE  STATE  PRINTING 


61 


ally  well  designed  to  promote  extravagance  and  waste  and 
absolutely  to  prevent  any  effort  toward  economy.  The  limita- 
tions upon  the  power  of  the  Board  to  prevent  any  actual  con- 
trol and  the  establishment  of  an  official  Board  under  such  cir- 
cumstances is  only  a  pretense  at  protecting  the  taxpayers  of 
the  State." 

What  was  reported  above  by  three  Democrats  to  a  Demo- 
cratic Governor  still  exists  and  is  tolerated,  if  nothing  worse, 
by  a  Republican  Governor  in  his  second  year,  who  went  up 
and  down  the  State,  in  his  campaign,  promising  retrenchment 
and  the  thorough  uprooting  of  graft.  It  may  be  true,  of 
course,  that  Governor  Whitman,  with  the  many  complexities 
in  politics  and  State  affairs  which  have  come  upon  him,  either 
has  forgotten  or  doesn't  know  of  this  situation,  but  many 
people  who  frequently  advise  him  do,  gentlemen  to  whom  a 
wink  sometimes  has  all  the  lucrative  character  that  makes  a 
backwoods  legislator  lift  a  mortgage  on  his  home.  This 
introduction  to  the  State  printing  may  be  regarded  as  a  bit 
discursive,  but  is  necessary  so  that  the  humor  of  the  situation 
may  unfold  as  the  story  goes  along. 

The  City  Club  of  New  York,  sentinel  of  civic  virtue,  and 
a  good  sentinel  betimes;  The  Merchants'  Association,  eager 
to  promote  the  city's  trade  by  reducing  taxation;  Mr.  Percy 
Rockefeller,  with  his  contribution  of  $10,000  last  year  to  some 
unguided,  if  not  misguided,  people  in  behalf  of  discoveries  for 
State  retrenchment,  could  well  take  the  State  printing  as  one 
bit  of  a  battering  ram;  but  all  these  agencies,  and  others,  seem 
to  flounder  in  efforts  for  non-potential  saving  in  State  affairs, 
or  in  work  for  laws  that  look  good,  but  simply  clog  the  wheels 
of  real  progress. 

Marsden  G.  Scott,  former  president  of  Typographical 
Union  No.  6  of  New  York,  known  as  "Big  Six,"  and  now 
president  of  all  the  typographical  unions  of  the  United  States 
and  Canada,  a  man  with  live  brains  in  his  head,  and  contempt 
for  grafters,  big  or  small,  was  asked  by  the  author  of  this 
book  to  investigate  the  State  printing  contracts.  His  report 
covers  many  pages,  but  a  few  of  his  conclusions  will  suggest 
to  the  taxpayer  that  neither  the  Highway  Department  nor  any 
other  has  more  class  distinction  in  respect  of  waste  and  graft 


62      WHAT'S  The  matter  with  new  YORK? 


than  the  State  printing.  His  work  ran  on  parallel  lines  with 
that  done  by  me  and  there  was  a  complete  agreement.  Among 
other  things,  he  says,  in  his  report: 

"Every  line  in  the  Printing  Law  which  Refers  to  the 
Legislative  and  Department  printing  contracts  and  specifica- 
tions should  be  repealed.  There  is  no  other  way  by  which 
the  abuses  which  do  exist  can  be  corrected.  There  is  no 
escape  from  the  conviction  resulting  from  the  investigation 
that: 

"First. — The  authors  of  the  Printing  Law  deliberately 
planned  to  place  the  State  at  a  disadvantage  under  these 
contracts. 

"Second. — That  the  individuals  who  devised  the  specifica- 
tions in  these  contracts  intended  to  conceal,  rather  than  reveal, 
the  quantities,  qualities  and  description  of  printing  to  be  done, 
and  that  ample  room  HAS  BEEN  PROVIDED  IN  THE 
CONTRACTS  FOR  ALL  SORTS  OF  TRICKERY,  DIS- 
HONESTY AND  DECEIT. 

"Third. — That  there  is  evidence  of  collusion  of  the  most 
clumsy  description  between  alleged  competitors  for  these 
contracts." 

In  one  branch  of  departmental  printing  alone,  Mr.  Scott, 
who  is  a  master  of  his  art,  wrote  that  $50,000  a  year  could 
be  saved. 

How  this  plain  larcency  can  go  on  year  after  year,  deceiving 
a  Hughes,  passing  by  the  somnolent  Dix,  the  fugitive  virtue  of 
Glynn  and  the  iridescent  reform  of  Whitman  is  understood, 
and  controlled,  of  course,  by  persons  who  cut  their  wisdom 
teeth  by  rubbing  up  against  the  rough  edges  of  the  world. 
These  sort  of  persons  have  become  marble-minded,  as  well  as 
marble-hearted.  They  occupy  a  distinct  place  in  the  life  we 
live.  They  have,  in  the  hunt  for  money  or  advantage  that  will 
bring  money,  become  so  that  before  their  mental  activities 
there  is  always  the  shadow  of  some  deal  carrying  with  it 
money  easily  won  from  some  non-personal  source. 

This  comes  because  gentlemen  of  refinement  at  home,  of 
ultra-virtue  in  the  church,  of  spasmodic  liberality  in  open  civic 
things,  don't  bother  about  plain  theft  in  public  affairs;  don't 
worry  as  to  whether  they  should  protect  the  man  less  able  to 


THE  STATE  PRINTING 


63 


bear  the  cost  of  the  piling  taxes.  On  the  contrary,  they  elect 
their  most  smooth  grafter,  as  in  one  case,  president  of  a 
notoriously  affluent,  if  not  wholly  moral,  club,  he  having  bank 
connections  and  a  winking  privilege  in  a  few  trust  companies. 
Again  it  happens  that  these  self-same  gentlemen — that  is, 
some  of  them — may  be  somniferous  members  of  a  great  civic 
committee,  their  ayes  or  naes  delivered  by  wide-awake  office 
boys  while  they  are  skirting  just  above  the  surface  of  crime  in 
a  grasping  hunt  for  somebody's  money.  It  is  this  situation 
which  gives  us  a  printing  ring  in  New  York  State  so  strong 
that  no  Governor  has  been  able  to  disturb  it,  and  so  big 
that  only  one  Governor — Sulzer — sought  to  destroy  it. 


C4      IV HATS  fHE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


THE  TREASURY  SPIGOT  OPEN. 

There  is  no  real  competition,  of  course,  for  printing,  but 
the  most  blase  thief  of  the  old  days,  when  green  goods  men 
were  plentiful  and  receptive  "cops"  looked  eagerly  on  the 
percentage  of  business,  would  be  dazed  by  the  ingenuity  of 
the  State  printing  crowd.  The  legislative  contract  hasn't  been 
changed  since  the  days  of  Governor  Hughes. 

It  provides  that  the  successful  bidder  for  legislative  print- 
ing, which  includes  all  bills  and  documents,  and  all  reports  of 
the  State  Departments,  shall  not  receive  any  additional  com- 
pensation for  alterations  and  corrections. 

Could  anything  be  fairer  to  the  State?  The  poor  printer 
sets  the  pages  and  then  some  unholy  legislator  mangles  them 
to  suit  the  boiling  opinions  of  the  hour.  He  amends  the  bill 
in  the  Assembly,  and  a  brain-burning  Senator  amends  it  a 
bit  more.  At  each  amendment  it  is  reprinted  so  that  the 
always-watchful  representatives  of  the  people  may  know  what 
is  doing  in  the  reshaping  of  the  laws.  Then  the  judiciary 
committee,  or  maybe  the  cities  committee,  or  some  other 
body  of  the  legislature  amends  it  again,  perhaps  to  put  in  a 
semi-colon  instead  of  a  comma,  and  it  is  reprinted  under  the 
rules.  Then  some  gentleman  with  a  financial  glint  into  the 
future,  small  though  it  may  be,  amends  the  title,  so  as  to 
conform  to  the  most  recent  rules  of  strict  legislative  pro- 
cedure. Then  the  bill  is  again  reprinted.  In  the  committee 
of  the  whole  some  profound  lawyer  in  the  legislature  points 
out  the  grammatical  distinction  in  law  between  "shall"  and 
"will"  and  further  amends  the  bill,  which,  under  the  rules,  is 
recommitted  to  committee  "to  be  reprinted  with  corrections." 

Now,  under  that  contract  with  the  printers  which  provides 
that  he  SHALL  NOT  RECEIVE  ANY  ADDITIONAL 
COMPENSATION  FOR  ALTERATIONS  AND  COR- 
RECTIONS, the  average  reader  would  assume  that  this 
particular  printer  had  been  born  wrong,  and  brought  up  with 
a  bifurcated  mind,  when  he  bid  on  a  contract  so  far  astray 
from  common  sense.  Not  at  all ;  the  poor  printer  is  sitting  in 
the  golden  seat  and  shoving  greenbacks  into  shadowy  but 
corporeal  hands. 


THE  STATE  PRINTING 


65 


He  interprets  the  contract  to  mean  that  when  he  sets  up 
the  type  and  prints  the  job  that  his  work  is  at  an  end;  that  as 
he  isn't  to  be  paid  for  corrections  and  alterations,  then  all  he 
has  to  furnish  is  a  completed  first  job;  that  nothing  in  the 
contract  requires  him  to  keep  his  type  standing,  that  is,  in 
place;  hence,  when  alterations  come  he  is  entitled  to  be  paid 
over  again  for  all  the  type  in  the  bill. 

That  is,  he  holds  that  having  set  up  the  legislative  docu- 
ment correctly,  he  can  distribute  the  type,  which,  of  course,  he 
doesn't  do;  that  when  alterations  or  amendments  are  made, 
there  is  no  visible  type  to  amend,  so  he  alleges  he  sets  it  up 
all  over  again.  Each  bill,  he  holds,  when  finished,  is  a  com- 
pleted job  for  which  he  charges  under  the  terms  of  the 
contract,  and  there  is  no  obligation  on  his  part,  as  he  is  not 
paid  for  standing  matter,  to  keep  the  type  together.  Therefore, 
when  a  correction  comes  over  with  the  legislative  edict  that 
the  bill  shall  be  reprinted,  he  charges  each  time  for  new 
composition.  He  holds  that,  technically,  he  has  distributed 
the  type.    Then  this  happens. 

A  wise  agent  of  the  State  printer  causes  somebody  to 
introduce  a  bill  amending  the  charter  of  the  city  of  Utica  or 
Rome.  ThGP  document,  let  us  say,  is  240  pages.  Then  another 
wise  agent  amends  the  printed  bill  on  page  9,  and  it  is 
"reprinted"  for  both  houses  of  the  legislature.  The  contractor 
is  paid  for  resetting  the  type  on  all  the  240  pages,  although 
he  has  only  reset  one  line  on  page  9.  Then  a  distinguished 
senator  gravely  points  out  an  ambiguity  of  language  on  page 
131,  and  the  bill  is  recommitted  for  reprinting  and  the  240 
pages  are  paid  for  over  again,  while  only  one  page  of  type  is 
touched  by  the  hands  of  the  compositor.  Finally  the  bill,  as 
intended,  dies  in  committee,  but  the  ghost  walks  several  times 
in  the  State  Treasury  for  these  several  amendments  and,  as 
befits  a  ghost,  there  is  silence — as  well  as  addition  and  division. 
Some  bills  are  amended  as  often  as  seven,  eight  and  nine  times. 

One  gentleman  in  the  Legislature  who  has  become  the 
immodest  owner  of  real  estate — I  say  immodest  because  of 
his  yearly  purchases  on  a  salary  of  $1,500  per  annum  and  no 
other  known  business — in  one  week  made  ten  motions  to  print 
public  documents  that  even  the  feeble-minded  patients  in 


66     WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 

Letchworth  Village  wouldn't  read  in  their  most  non-lucid 
moments. 

The  report  of  the  Superintendent  of  the  Capitol  is  ordered 
printed,  telling  the  Trustees  of  Public  Buildings — that  is  the 
Governor,  the  Lieutenant  Governor,  and  Speaker  of  Assembly 
— how  many  chairs,  book  cases,  oil  paintings,  carpets,  desks, 
electric  lights,  gas  jets,  etc.,  were  in  the  building.  Some  genius 
put  it  into  law  that  the  Superintendent  should  report  each  year 
to  the  Trustees  the  sum  of  visible  property,  not  counting  the 
elevators,  stairways,  rooms  and  department  scandals.  Then 
some  other  genius  made  it  necessary  to  send  the  report  to 
the  legislature  and,  so  that  it  might  not  be  too  brief,  it  is 
required  that  the  unsold  junk  in  the  cellar  shall  be  enumerated. 

After  that,  the  obliging  legislator  moved  its  printing  and 
distribution  as  a  public  document,  which  is  not  at  all  so  bad  as 
the  printing  at  legislative  expense  in  a  book  of  several  hundred 
pages  this  year,  just  as  every  other  year,  of  farms  for  sale  by 
canny  people  who  mortgage  them  for  twice  the  assessed  value 
and  then  offer  them  for  sale  at  three  times  the  mortgage  vplue. 

Let  me  concede  that  this  last  paragraph  is  a  bit  obscure, 
but  the  explantion  will  clear  things  and  add  a  bit  of  humor 
for  all  except  a  particularly  grievous  taxpayer.  The  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture — the  cost  of  which  has  jumped  300  per 
cent,  in  recent  years — gathers  statistics  of  farms  for  sale,  puts 
them  in  attractive  form,  has  them  printed  at  the  expense  of 
the  State  in  the  manner  of  a  new  novel  or  *'the  best  seller," 
sends  them  by  mail  to  real  estate  dealers  and  other  speculators 
at  State  cost  and,  once  in  a  while,  succeeds  in  finding  an 
"angel"  for  the  farmer.  It  is  questionable  whether  this  is  done 
for  the  farmer  or  the  public  printer,  but  it  can  be  said,  in  all 
truth,  for  the  Agricultural  Department  that  their  many  publi- 
cations on  farm  methods,  including  the  usefulness  of  music 
and  mathematics  as  studies  in  the  lonesome  places  of  our 
country  areas,  are  always  up  to  the  year  in  time,  while  nicely- 
bound  reports  of  some  other  departments  are  sometimes  a 
year  astray. 

If  this  printing  of  junk,  and  paying  for  it,  really  interests 
Governor  Whitman  from  a  taxpayer's  point  of  view,  he  will 
be  more  impressed  by  the  fact  that  most  of  this  junk  never 


THE  STATE  PRINTING 


67 


goes  anywhere.  There  are  10,000  volumes  of  nicely -bound 
annual  reports  in  the  State  Capitol  to-day,  less  than  three 
years  old,  taking  up  room,  menacing  the  fire  safety  of  the 
building,  useful  only  to  the  point  that  the  State  Printer  deliv- 
ered them,  and  that  when  he  was  paid  he  acted  like  any  com- 
mercial man  would  with  an  official  pistol  at  his  head. 

If  the  Governor  will  walk  down  State  Street  to  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  there  he  will  see  a  mountain  of  bound 
volumes  piled  up  in  the  basement  corridors,  visible  proof  to 
the  former  successful  district  attorney  that  the  State,  as  an 
agent  for  the  protection  of  the  taxpayers,  is  asleep.  Should 
the  Governor  take  life  less  seriously  from  a  political  viewpoint 
and  study  the  openings  for  economy  in  printing,  let  him  get 
his  blood  warm  and  his  mind  awake  by  a  visit  to  the  third- 
class  junk  shops  of  Albany.  There  he  can  buy  volumes  of 
State  reports  at  five  cents  a  pound,  some  of  them  printed 
since  he  took  oath  of  office. 

They  represent  the  cumulative  efforts  of  a  few  agents  who 
made  the  legislative  printing  of  bills  and  department  reports 
alone  amount  to  approximately  $350,000  in  the  first  year  of 
the  Governor's  reform  administration. 

These  i^eports,  it  is  true,  make  but  a  small  part  of  the 
$350,000,  but  they  are  essential  weaves  in  the  whole  corrupt 
garment,  one  strand  standing  with  the  other;  and  the  legis- 
lative printing,  rich  as  it  is,  only  a  live  asset  in  the  sky-high 
bills  for  other  department  printing.  No  one  doubts  that 
Governor  Whitman  has  a  keen  mind  and  that  he  can  see  a  bit 
of  fraud  standing  clear  to  his  mental  vision,  as  sharply  as 
any  one  of  us  may  note  an  aeroplane  against  the  sky. 

The  specifications  for  printed  stationery  are  so  drawn  as 
to  ruin  any  printer  bold  enough  to  break  in  on  those  who  have 
this  State  graft.  The  man  on  the  inside  bids  low — sometimes 
under  actual  cost  price  for  certain  stationery.  He  knows  that 
little,  if  any,  of  this  will  be  called  for,  and  that  certain  other 
things,  bid  as  in  lots  of  100,  will  be  called  for  thousands  of 
times  over.  The  lowest  bidder  on  certain  specified  items 
when  the  contract  is  let  gets,  without  bidding,  all  other  types 
of  stationery  that  may  be  demanded.  He  may  print  a  million 
at  a  time,  knowing  that  even  if  only  5,000  are  ordered,  this  is 


68      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


preliminary.  The  entire  law  is  drawn  to  discourage  proper 
bidding. 

There  is  not  any  standardization  of  stationery  supplies. 
One  department  will  pay  more  for  a  certain  type  of  blotting 
paper  than  another.  It  is  so  of  typewriter  ribbons,  carbon 
paper,  ink,  pencils,  legal  cap  pads  and  the  hundreds  of  other 
items  from  pen-holders  to  steel  letter  openers.  Some  of  the 
prices  paid  are  from  40  to  70  per  cent,  more  than  in  New 
York.  There  is  no  proper  control  of  departmental  stationery, 
and  accelerators,  of  course,  are  around  with  all  sorts  of  patent 
articles  to  sell. 

The  remedy  for  all  this  is  simple.  The  crooked  State 
Printing  Law  should  be  repealed.  That  is  the  first  necessity. 
Then  there  should  be  a  Printing  Board  modeled  after  New 
York  City,  to  standardize  all  supplies,  and,  by  honest  and  open 
competition,  get  what  any  big  business  house  would  get — 
real  value  for  the  money.  All  the  Departments  of  State  and 
Bureaus  would  be  furnished  all  supplies  through  this  Printing 
Board,  and  every  year  they  would  be  required  to  estimate  as 
a  whole  the  approximate  quantities  required.  This  would  do 
away  with  all  extra  charges  and  all  collusive  bidding. 

Aside  from  all  this,  money  otherwise  could  be  saved  by 
having  department  records  and  standard  forms  of  blanks 
printed  in  State  institutions.  A  printing  shop  in  one  of  the 
prisons,  properly  managed,  as  in  some  other  States,  would 
save  much  money.  The  whole  thing  is  purely  one  of  adminis- 
tation.  If  the  Governor  and  the  Comptroller  will  take  hold 
of  the  subject  as  business  men,  another  year  will  see  the  State 
relieved  of  this  odious  printing  and  stationery  proposition.  It 
is  now  a  reflection  upon  the  intelligence  of  State  government. 
The  job,  when  done,  should  be  done  thoroughly  and  embrace 
the  protection  of  the  State  Treasury  in  every  item,  from  legis- 
lative printing  to  the  purchase  of  wire  letter  trays  and  writing 
pads. 


MONEY  FLOWS  INTO  TREASURY 


69 


INDIRECT  TAXES  IN  STATE 

How  Indirect  Revenue  saves  the  Taxpayers  in  part  from 
the  burden  of  growing  expenditure  in  the  State:  Receipts 
in  1915  from  indirect  taxes,  $41,746,634. 


Tak 


-T>x, 

$3,559.42-5 


Tax 


$9,099,355 


N\oToR  Tax  ak^ 
rAisteiLAMtoos 

*  9.l5l.6\l 


Nobody  connected  with  the  financial  administration  of  the 
State  believes  that  our  indirect  revenues  can  be  increased  by 
more  than  a  few  millions.  These  revenues  will  remain  near 
the  $50,000,000  mark.  This  means  a  steadily  rising  direct  tax 
hereafter  unless  there  can  be  a  thorough  reorganization  of 
State  expenditures. 


70      WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 

THE  STATE  PRISONS. 

Beyond  all  question  the  greatest  administrative  blot  on 
New  York  State  Government  is  the  management  of  its  State 
Prisons  and  correctional  institutions.  There  is  no  manage- 
ment. The  prisons  have  been  in  the  control  of  larcenous  poli- 
ticians for  years  past.  Men  of  shady  characters  have  had 
positions  of  trust.  Men  of  no  breeding  and  who  couldn't  spell 
penology  have  had  the  welfare  of  the  prisoners  in  their  cus- 
tody. Men  in  the  pay  of  outside  contractors  have  had  the 
industrial  development  in  their  control.  Every  effort  to  make 
the  penal .  institutions  self  sustaining  has  been  hobbled  by 
political  influence.  Fraud  in  land  purchases  and  in  building 
contracts  are  a  part  of  the  record.  As  I  write  this  the  news- 
papers carry  the  story  that  a  prison  grafter,  indicted  by  Gov- 
ernor Sulzer  in  19 13,  has  after  one  non-determinate  trial 
pleaded  guilty.  His  larceny  was  committed  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  Great  Meadow  Prison,  an  institution  which  is  a 
standing  monument  to  the  partnership  in  crime  between  Re- 
publicans and  Democrats  in  the  State  Service. 

While  other  States  have  been  going  steadily  on  with  prison 
reform,  making  for  the  improvement  of  the  convicts  in  health, 
morals  and  industry.  New  York  has  not  stopped  still,  but  has 
gone  back,  except  for  the  occasional  personal  efforts  of  an 
Osborne  in  Sing  Sing,  a  Rattigan  in  Auburn  and  a  Homer  in 
Comstock,  But  these  men  have  been  tied  in  their  work  by 
State  red  tape,  by  hostile  prison  officials,  by  indifferent  Gov- 
ernors and  Legislatures,  and  by  powerful  political  influences 
seeking  control  of  the  expenditures.  A  plain  recital  of  the 
story  of  Sing  Sing  in  brief  form  will  give  the  reader  a  glimpse 
of  misgovernment  hardly  believable  of  a  great  commonwealth 
filled  with  so  many  decent  citizens,  powerful  newspapers  and 
earnest  preachers  of  the  Gospel. 

In  1906  the  people  almost  unanimously  demanded  that  a 
new  prison  be  built  to  take  the  place  of  Sing  Sing  or,  at  least, 
relieve  the  overcrowding  there  that  caused  two  men  to  be 
put  in  cells  not  big  enough  for  one,  cells  insanitary,  unlighted 
and  unventilated.  Governor  Higgins,  under  the  terms  of  a 
a  bill  carrying  an  appropriation,  appointed  a  new  prison  Com- 


THE  STATE  PRISONS 


71 


mission.  The  new  prison  under  the  terms  of  the  bill  was  to 
be  South  of  Poughkeepsie  and  have  "A  sufficient  quantity  of 
trap  rock  for  use  in  the  improvement  of  highways."  So  far  were 
we  behind  in  prison  reform  that  the  Legislature  gravely  be- 
lieved there  should  be  mountains  of  trap  rock  to  keep  weak 
men,  ailing  men  or  feeble-minded  men  working  in  stone 
quarries. 

Anybody  in  the  department  of  State  Geology  could  have 
told  those  solons  that  there  was  no  trap  rock  in  the  State 
except  for  a  limited  number  of  miles  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
Hudson,  and  wholly  in  the  district  now  in  the  Palisades  Park. 
In  another  year  the  Commission  reported  they  could  not  find 
any  land  required  by  the  terms  of  the  act.  The  law  was 
amended  and  the  Commission  empowered  to  buy  a  site  con- 
tiguous to  hard  rock  suitable  for  the  State  Highways.  The 
Prison  Commission  went  to  the  west  bank  of  the  Hudson  and 
took  land  on  what  is  known  as  Bear  Mountain.  Governor 
Charles  E.  Hughes  approved  the  place  which  called  for  an 
ultimate  expenditure  of  $2,000,000  apart  from  the  labor  of 
convicts  in  laying  out  the  grounds,  building  roads  and  making 
ditches. 

There  came  the  first  bit  of  political  pap.  The  State  Archi- 
tect and  his  staff  were  not  regarded  as  good  enough  to  draw 
plans  for  a  prison  and  an  outsider  was  hired,  he  to  get  five  per 
cent,  on  the  cost  of  the  whole,  a  trifle  of  $200,000,  with  addi- 
ditional  charges  for  any  resulting  changes.  A  gentleman  of 
Republican  antecedents  in  Poughkeepsie,  who  was  friendly 
with  the  Republican  owners  of  a  sandstone  quarry,  and  on 
generally  good  terms  with  the  gilt  edged  leaders  of  the  State 
machine  got  the  job.  To  make  things  pleasant  for  everybody 
there  was  competition  for  it.  Two  years  had  passed  in  the 
meantime  and  convicts  were  sleeping  in  the  chapel  of  Sing 
Sing.  The  Commission  had  discovered,  however,  after  paying 
^the  architect  $10,000  on  account  that  there  would  be  great  ex- 
pense for  grading  and  excavation  and  so  asked  for  $200,000 
additional,  or  $2,200,000  in  all. 

The  Commission  had  gone  along  and  expended  $268,399.35 
when  Governor  Hughes  in  1910  notified  them  to  stop  as  in 
all  probability  the  Bear  Mountain  Prison  site  would  be  taken 


72      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


into  Palisades  Park.  There  had  been  expended  in  Architect's 
fees  $50,000;  for  the  expenses  of  the  Commission  about  $30,- 
000 ;  for  the  maintenance  of  convicts  in  excavation  work,  $60,- 
000;  for  a  boat  to  take  them  to  and  from  Sing  Sing,  $17,000; 
for  building  a  train  road  up  the  mountain,  $32,500;  for  the 
site,  $78,000,  but  for  an  actual  prison,  nothing.  Then  Gov- 
ernor Hughes  and  the  Legislature  abandoned  the  site  and  so  in 
the  year  of  1910  nothing  had  been  accomplished  in  any 
practicable  way  since  1906  when  the  Prison  Commission  was 
named  first  by  Governor  Higgins.  In  the  meantime  prisoners 
were  going  mad  in  Sing  Sing  while  the  State  looked  on  at  its 
own  incapacity. 

Then  came  the  second  chapter  in  the  meanest  story  that 
ever  disgraced  the  State.  The  Commission  went  hunting 
again  for  a  site.  Governor  Hughes  was  too  busy  fighting  the 
bosses  to  watch  the  land  sharks,  although  he  was  well 
aware  several  realty  deals  that  still  smell  had  been  put  over 
on  him.  The  Commission  bought  a  site  at  Wingdale,  Dutchess 
County,  full  of  swamp  land  and  quicksand.  It  was  not  far 
from  the  Poughkeepsie  home  of  their  prize  architect  and  in 
the  same  county.  Wholly  apart  from  the  marshes  and  other 
unavailability,  it  was  unfit  for  an  industrial  and  farm  institu- 
tion worthy  of  the  State,  and  there  was  by  no  means  sufficient 
tillable  land  to  keep  prisoners  busy  on  garden,  dairy  and  other 
agricultural  work  that  would  make  them  self-supporting  and 
give  them  healthful  labor.  But  contracts  were  let  and  stone 
all  the  way  from  a  St.  Lawrence  County  Republican's  quarry 
was  decided  upon  by  the  architect  as  the  best  looking  ma- 
terial. It  was  a  delicate  compliment  to  a  former  speaker  of 
the  Assembly  and  if  the  freight  rates  were  stiff  and  the  cost 
high,  with  the  resultant  profits  on  the  stone,  there  was  at 
least  the  knowledge  that  "no  finer  fellow  than  Ed.  Merritt 
ever  lived,"  which  was  proved  by  the  St.  Lawrence  County 
people  when  they  sent  him  to  Congress  after  he  had  been 
speaker  of  the  Assembly. 

But  in  the  meantime  Hughes  had  gone  out  and  Dix  had 
come  in.  Some  Democrats  told  him  there  were  unholy  pur- 
poses behind  that  Wingdale  prison  site.  There  was  an  investi- 
gation of  the  quicksand.    The  architect  obligingly  offered  to 


THE  STATE  PRISONS 


73 


move  the  buildings  a  bit  and  change  the  layout  so  that  the 
foundations  surely  would  stand.  The  Brooklyn  Contractor 
on  the  job  went  merrily  about  his  work.  Mr.  Merritt  and  his 
friends  signed  a  contract  to  deliver  the  sandstone.  Then  Dix 
and  his  men  in  the  Legislature  stopped  the  job  on  the  ground 
that  the  site  was  not  fit  for  a  prison. 

Dix  went  out  and  Sulzer  came  in  to  gather  a  cloud  of 
troubles.  Sing  Sing  waited,  but  a  grand  jury  meanwhile  made 
a  terrific  arraignment  of  the  moral  conditions  in  the  prison 
and  declared  the  sufferings  of  some  inmates  to  be  worse  than 
death.  Sulzer  departed  and  Glynn  came,  but  appeals  to  him, 
in  his  march  of  economy,  for  any  sort  of  relief,  were  vain.  Not 
even  a  modern  cell  block  for  the  old  prison  could  be  won  from 
the  Governor  pro-tem.  Mr.  Whitman  came.  Two  factions  of 
his  party  battled  for  the  new  prison  site.  One  faction  with 
aims  against  the  peace  of  William  Barnes,  Jr.,  and  alleging 
profound  respect  for  the  Governor,  demanded  the  revival  of 
the  old  Wingdale  prison  contract,  swamps  and  all;  the  other 
faction  savagely  intent  that  no  such  thing  should  come. 
Against  both  of  these  factions  were  the  decent  prison  reform- 
ers and  upstanding  men  in  both  parties,  who  demanded  a 
complete  progressive  programme  and  a  new  deal  all  around. 
The  first  year  of  Mr.  Whitman  passed.  Now  in  his;  second 
year  we  are  no  further  along  except  with  two  bills  passed, 
one  committing  the  State  to  Wingdale,  the  other  leaving  the 
question  optional  with  a  Commission  to  be  named,  but  neither 
doing  one  thing  toward  civilizing  the  prison  situation.  The 
Governor  has  signed  the  bill  putting  this  whole  thing  into  the 
hands  of  a  Commission,  just  where  we  were  in  1906;  and  so 
the  Government  moves. 

From  1906  to  1916,  a  period  of  11  years,  the  net  result  has 
been  nothing  except  a  raid  on  the  Treasury.  The  Wingdale 
Architect  has  so  far  received  $104,000  and  has  a  further  big 
^  bill  in  the  Court  of  Claims.  The  sandstone  men  get  their 
money  under  a  legal  contract.  The  Brooklyn  Contractor  went 
to  court  and  got  his  prospective  profits  on  his  $1,600,000  job. 
The  State  has  lost  eleven  years  and  counting  principal  and 
interest  about  $750,000  in  money.  Compare  this  shameful 
record  with  Indiana's  way  of  doing  things. 


74      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


That  State  in  the  Autumn  of  1914,  less  than  18  months  ago, 
purchased  a  prison  site  for  short  term  convicts  to  be  known 
as  the  Industrial  Farm.  A  tract  of  1,605  acres  at  less-  than 
$37  an  acre  was  found  40  miles  from  Indianapolis  on  which 
there  was  forest  land,  limestone,  water  and  soil  fit  for  grazing 
as  well  as  gardening.  This  farm  colony  is  open  now,  not 
dotted  with  expensive  buildings,  wasteful  heating  plants,  nor 
with  acres  of  ground  good  for  nothing.  It  is  meant  for  health 
and  economy  and  industrial  usefulness,  not  for  show,  heavy 
overhead  expenses  and  lack  of  efficiency.  Did  Indiana  get  a 
$200,000  architect  and  other  persons  with  supervisory  charges 
and  materials  to  sell? 

No;  Indiana  sent  down  one  man  as  superintendent  who 
was  a  contractor,  knew  how  to  put  up  a  sawmill,  build  roads, 
make  concrete,  dig  a  cellar  or  run  up  a  house.  In  30  days  he 
had  one  batch  of  long  term  prisoners  from  the  State  prison 
and  another  set  of  men  from  the  Indiana  Reformatory.  They 
were  men  whose  terms  would  soon  expire  and  who  could  be 
safely  trusted  not  to  spoil  their  near  chance  of  freedom.  Th^^y 
were  picked  mechanics  or  lusty  laborers  and  glad  to  live  out- 
doors in  tents  borrowed  from  the  adjutant  general.  Trees 
were  felled  and  lumber  was  soon  coming  from  the  saw  mill. 
A  crusher  was  put  up  and  hundred  of  yards  of  limestone  soon 
ready.  Convict  carpenters  made  the  window  sills  or  fashioned 
the  joists  for  the  long  and  airy  dormitories.  Garden  patches 
were  laid  out,  concrete  walks  built,  horse  barns  finished  and 
then  a  complete  sewer  system,  all  by  prison  labor. 

The  dormitories  built,  next  came  the  mess  room,  the 
kitchen,  the  laundry,  the  farm  storage  house.  In  exactly  six 
months  the  superintendent  was  ready  for  his  first  batch  of 
misdemeanants.  When  they  arrived  he  put  them  hard  at 
work  building  a  railway  switch  over  two  and  a  half  miles 
of  rough  land.  Others  started  on  a  power  plant,  others  on  a 
broom  factory,  some  on  making  handles  for  their  tools,  some 
in  building  toilet  facilities,  installing  shower  baths,  making 
concrete  drain  tiles,  bricks  or  posts  and  in  producing  agri- 
cultural lime  for  the  farm.  The  thirty  miles  of  fences  are 
nearly  finished  and  in  August  last  there  were  600  short  term 
prisoners  on  this  new  industrial  plant.    They  had  added  40 


THE  STATE  PRISONS 


75 


acres  to  the  tillable  land,  put  no  in  corn,  75  in  clover,  75  in 
oats,  60  in  garden  produce,  40  in  hay,  had  built  a  chicken 
ranch  and  were  feeding  the  kitchen  swill  to  82  hogs.  With 
100  Milch  cows  the  work  is  completed  and  14  employees  care 
for  these  men.  All  this  was  done  in  less  than  a  year.  The 
buildings  are  of  concrete  and  native  wood  and  exactly  what 
is  required  for  short  term  colonies  of  men. 

This  Industrial  Farm  is  the  last  foremost  step  by  Indiana 
in  her  penal  progress.  She  will  build  three  or  four  more  of 
them.  They  are  to  take  the  place  of  all  county  jails.  Instead 
of  keeping  men  idle  for  60  days,  90  days,  a  year,  or  longer  in 
these  jails,  they  are  at  once  shifted  to  the  farm  where  they 
earn  their  way  by  hard  work,  get  health  and  nourishing  sleep, 
serve  the  State  and  themselves,  while  enormously  reducing 
the  old  cost  of  keeping  them.  But  more  radical  still  is  the 
new  and  successful  bit  of  penology  which  puts  as  guards  over 
these  men — they  are  called  employees — long-term  prisoners 
who  have  from  3  months  to  6  months  of  their  minimum  terms 
to  serve.  Work  and  more  work  is  the  order  of  the  day. 
There  can  be  no  loafing  on  any  job  whether  on  the  farm,  in 
the  house  work  or  making  utensils  either  for  use  or  for  sale. 
Should  a 'short-term  prisoner  escape  then  his  recapture  will 
automatically  give  him  from  two  years  to  five  years  in  the 
State  prison.  Here  we  have,  all  summed  up,  discipline,  econ- 
omy, hard  work,  fresh  farm  food,  good  medical  care  and  a  gen- 
eral course  of  treatment  that  will  reclaim  many  men  by  giving 
them  rugged  health  and  time  for  sober  contemplation. 

But  let  the  reader  return  with  me  to  the  Sing  Sing  ques- 
tion before  we  go  further  into  our  lack  of  business  efficiency 
if  nothing  worse  in  our  main  penal  institutions.  Sing  Sing 
was  good  enough  50  years  ago,  as  a  prison  of  those  days  went, 
and  when  nobody  thought  of  'appealing  to  or  improving  the 
moral  side  of  a  convict.  Then  the  brutal  appeal,  always  brutal, 
was  to  the  mental  side  of  the  man,  to  make  him  fear  isolation 
or  the  dark  cell  or  the  fierce  assault  of  the  jailer.  He  was 
made  seemingly  good  by  compulsion,  his  heart  all  the  time 
being  slowly  done  to  death.  We  have  passed  those  days  but 
not  with  the  speed  of  other  States  and  not  at  all  with  the 
intelligence  good  government  demands.    This  very  day  we 


76      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


are  committing  crime  against  the  feeble  minded,  the  poor 
fellows  temporarily  ill  of  mind  and  the  criminal  insane  by 
treating  them  ignorantly  as  normal  persons,  trying  them  for 
crimes,  and  committing  them  to  prisons. 

Sing  Sing  reconstructed  in  part,  which  can  be  done,  the 
State  architect  tells  me,  at  a  cost  of  $600,000  should  be  made 
the  great  receiving  and  distributing  house  for  all  persons  con- 
victed of  crime,  the  length  of  their  stay  there  to  be  from  ten 
days  to  three  weeks,  long  enough  to  determine  their  status,  to 
get  their  history  fully  and  to  give  them  such  medical  treat- 
ment that  they  would  be  no  longer  a  menace  when  sent  away 
to  serve  their  sentences. 

They  would  be  examined  by  specialists  in  all  mental  dis- 
eases. They  would  be  searched  for  all  physical  defects.  The 
weak  and  the  strong  in  heart,  or  lungs,  or  mind,  would  be 
found  with  medical  certainty.  The  pathologist  would  be 
there  for  duty  well  done.  Psychiatry  would  have  its  useful 
place  within  this  clearing  house.  Whatever  psychology  has 
found  in  crime  would  be  in  use.  The  outstanding  thing  would 
be  the  reformation  not  the  punishment  of  men  and  women. 
Then  would  follow  the  classification  of  prisoners  by  the  very 
highest  medical  tests.  Their  classification  would  also  come 
in  respect  of  their  business  training,  mental  alertness  and 
physical  strength.  The  feeble-minded,  the  consumptive,  the 
criminal  insane  would  be  eliminated  from  the  race  of  those 
fit  to  labor  in  the  prisons. 

Then  from  this  great  human  clearing  house  those  com- 
mitted by  the  courts  would  go  to  the  places  best  fitted  for 
themselves  and  the  State.  Some  would  go  to  be  cared  for  and 
mentally  patched,  perhaps,  as  wards  of  the  State ;  others  would 
go  to  take  the  punishment  for  their  offenses  and  to  become 
useful  in  farm,  industrial  or  other  pursuits.  That  this  State, 
an  empire  in  itself,  has  not  done  this  before  comes  largely 
from  the  curse  of  low  politics  and  the  indifference  of  electors 
to  their  plain  duty.  The  love  of  the  ordinary  voter  for  his 
party's  political  label  has  given  us  most  of  our  poor  govern- 
ment or  lack  of  government,  something  which  the  taxpayer 
learns  only  in  times  of  great  public  stress. 


THE  STATE  PRISOXS 


77 


What  would  happen  after  this  were  done.  Our  industrial 
and  farm  prisons — we  should  have  industries  and  outdoor 
work  in  every  penal  institution — would  become  self-sustain- 
ing, and  the  moral  atmosphere  created  would  do  more  for  the 
reformation  of  the  convicts  than  any  other  agency  created  by 
the  human  mind.  Near  Sing  Sing,  for  nearly  70  per  cent,  of 
those  committed  come  from  New  York  City,  there  should  be 
the  greatest  of  all  industrial  and  farm  prisons,  not  any  swamp 
land  and  non-arable  soil  as  at  Wingdale;  but  a  tract  big 
enough  for  all  purposes  from  the  making  of  garbage  cans  and 
school  furniture  for  New  York  City  to  the  growing  of  all 
vegetables  needed  for  the  prison.  We  would  send  men  to 
this  nearest  institution  who  could  fit  themselves  to  the  indus- 
trial products  required  by  the  City  and  the  County  institutions 
of  New  York. 

Now  the  State  pays  freight  on  furniture  shipped  from 
Auburn  to  the  City  and  on  metal  ware  freighted  all  the  way 
from  Dannemora  Prison  to  New  York,  losing  the  profits  in 
railway  charges.  Now  the  State  scatters  the  compositors, 
pressmen  and  others  of  the  printing  trades  instead  of  having 
them  in  one  shop  where  they  could  do  all  institutional  and 
departmerftal  printing.  It  is  so  with  men  who  can  make  furni- 
ture, have  factory  training  or  are  machinists.  We  have  a 
hodge-podge  system  that  has  no  good  reason  to  exist.  But  A 
we  are  to  reform  the  system  the  way  to  begin  is  at  the 
base,  by  first  opening  a  receiving  and  distributing  station  and 
next  building  a  modern  prison  near  the  City.  When  we  have 
done  that  we  shall  be  in  the  way  to  bring  the  Auburn  institu- 
tion up  to  modern  times  in  buildings  and  facilities,  and  by 
enlarging  and  improving  those  at  Comstock  and  Clinton, 
solve  the  question  of  housing  with  the  moral  care  which  is 
implied.  All  this  could  be  done  in  three  years  with  red  tape 
and  politics  cut  away  and  in  the  hands  of  earnest  men  we 
could  start  an  industrial  development  to  make  our  penal  in- 
stitutions self-sustaining,  while  at  the  same  time  paying  the 
inmates  either  by  percentage  or  by  the  day  wages  enough  to 
make  them  feel  they  were  more  than  mere  atoms  on  the  dark 
edges  of  an  unforgiving  world. 


78     WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


Pennsylvania  in  the  last  ten  years  has  been  making  big 
progress  in  prison  reform  and  development  and  now  has  an 
act  which  provides  that  the  prisoners  shall  not  get  less  than 
10  cents  and  not  more  than  50  cents  a  day.  Warden  Osborne 
in  Sing  Sing  went  into  a  prison  wholly  demoralized  and  by 
pure  kindness  and  a  steady  swing  of  high  human  action  in- 
creased the  output  of  the  industries  by  from  1 5  to  30  per  cent., 
handicapped  by  imperfect  machinery  and  supplies,  halted  by 
lack  of  co-operation  from  higher  officials  and  helped  only  be- 
cause the  moral  instincts  of  his  prisoners  were  touched  by  the 
acts  of  a  Warden  who  did  not  regard  them  as  brutes.  How 
much  more,  then,  can  be  accomplished  with  well  fitted  shops 
worked  by  men  who  know  they  need  not  go  out  of  prison 
penniless,  by  men  who  are  willing  to  go  out  penniless  if  they 
can  help  with  money  a  mother  or  some  other  dependent,  or 
having  none  to  help  they  can  buy  additional  commutation  by 
the  extent  of  their  industry? 

Of  course,  the  whole  trouble  lies  in  the  lack  of  manage- 
ment. It  seems  incredible  but  it  is  true  that  New  York's 
prison  government  has  no  State  superintendent  of  industries. 
With  its  thousands  of  convict  tradesmen  there  is  no  director 
of  the  work;  no  man  in  authority  to  see  that  machinery  is 
up  to  date  or  sufficient  for  demands;  no  man  with  authority 
to  regulate  the  industrial  work  of  the  convicts.  So  the  penal 
institutions,  great  employers  of  skilled  labor,  lack  a  super- 
intendent in  the  most  vital  money-producing  institutions  we 
have,  vital  for  the  health  and  training  of  the  patient  as  well 
as  for  the  State  Treasury.  Each  prison  runs  on  its  own  hook. 
There  is  a  chief  of  the  industrial  plant  at  each  penal  institu- 
tion, always  as  a  rule  picked  for  his  political  influence;  always 
as  a  rule  incompetent.  These  men  should  be  taken  from  ex- 
amination lists  in  the  Civil  Service  and  directed  by  a  super- 
intendent and  at  least  two  deputies  from  Albany,  with  their 
fingers  always  on  the  pulse  of  prison  industries  and  their 
methods  purely  on  business  lines. 

When  it  cost,  as  it  has  done,  more  to  produce  a  blanket  or 
a  piece  of  cloth  for  the  insane  asylums  than  either  can  be 
purchased  for  in  the  open  market  we  can  see  to  what  non- 
efficiency  we  have  come.    The  cause,  of  course,  is  political 


THE  STATE  PRISONS  79 

management  and  both  the  taxpayers  and  the  prisoners  suffer. 
To  keep  the  costs  from  piling  higher  the  food  served  is  of 
the  cheapest  and  the  coffee  little  better  than  water.  One 
prison  is  handicapped  for  lack  of  shops,  another  for  machinery, 
but  always  it  is  the  same  story  of  indifference  at  Albany  to 
the  progress  of  the  State. 

Auburn  prison,  so  well  managed  by  an  intelligent  and 
God-fearing  Warden,  Mr.  Charles  F.  Rattigan,  editor, 
philosopher,  and  lover  of  clean  politics  may  be  taken  as  a 
sample  illustration. 


SALES  OF  PRODUCTS,  1912-13   $372,000 

EARNINGS,  1912-13    29,000 

SALES  OF  PRODUCTS,  1913-14   338,000 

EARNINGS,  1913-14    38,000 


Of  course,  there  would  be  no  earnings  shown  if  interest 
on  cost  of  plant  were  charged  up.  But  this  showing  is  not 
caused  by  lack  of  interest  on  the  part  of  the  Warden.  The 
Legislature  fails  to  provide  year  after  year  for  the  industrial 
needs  of  the  prison  and  no  Governor  seems  to  think  it  is 
any  of  hil^  business.  Here  is  the  story  told  officially  in  the 
report  of  the  State  Prison  Commission : 

"The  cloth  and  blanket  department  at  Auburn  cannot  sup- 
ply the  demand  made  upon  it  and  this  Commission  is  thereby 
compelled  to  annually  isssue  certificates  of  release  to  State 
Institutions  permitting  the  purchase  of  thousands  of  pairs  of 
blankets  and  thousands  of  yards  of  cloth  in  the  markets.  The 
furniture  department  is  likewise  far  behind  its  orders.  The 
capacity  of  the  cloth  and  blanket  department  should  at  least 
be  doubled,  and  could  be  by  the  installation  of  additional  ma- 
chinery. Even  with  the  present  plant  the  output  could  be 
increased  by  equipping  the  shops  with  electric  lights.  Under 
^  present  conditions  the  hours  of  labor  are  shortened  by  lack 
of  proper  lighting  facilities  during  the  winter  season." 

It  is  the  same  story  of  negligence,  incapacity  and  lack  of 
all  business  principles.  The  Governors  come  and  go  with  fair 
promises  on  their  lips,  and  legislators  who  can  see  a  fugitive 
dollar  far  away,  cannot  see  their  plain  duty  to  the  State.  The 


80      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


way  we  do  these  things  compared  with  at  least  nine  other 
States  shows  government  here  to  be  a  sham,  and  the  larceny 
of  taxpayers'  money  a  daily  incident  of  State  Management. 

The  conditions  thus  plainly  shown  to  exist  at  Auburn  with 
the  consequent  and  steady  waste  of  the  State's  money  are 
true  everywhere.  The  Prison  Commission  is  powerless  except 
to  recommend  to  the  Legislature.  The  Superintendent  of 
Prisons  cannot  provide  money  nor  can  he  provide  a  business 
managament.  The  Warden,  be  he  ever  so  able  and  diligent, 
must  work  with  the  inadequate  tools  the  State  provides.  The 
Governor  of  New  York,  the  real  business  man  when  he  knows 
his  duty  could,  of  course,  mend  all  this,  but  no  Governor  since 
the  time  of  Mr.  Higgins  has  done  anything  in  penal  institu- 
tions, either  to  promote  the  industries  of  the  State,  the  busi- 
ness education  of  the  prisoners  or  the  orderly  progress  of 
prison  reform.  Every  Governor  has  taken  more  interest  in  the 
undergound  movement  of  politics,  in  attendance  upon  regi- 
mental reviews,  public  dinners,  cornerstone  layings  and  countv 
fairs. 

With  the  situation  in  Auburn  as  it  is,  and  much  worse  in 
the  shops  of  Sing  Sing,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  an  entire 
lack  of  business  foresight  in  the  Great  Meadow  prison,  at 
Comstock.  This  is  the  newest  and  destined  some  day  to  be 
the  finest  of  our  prisons.  Its  origin  began,  of  course,  in  a 
land  deal.  The  site  is  geographically  out  of  the  way  for  a 
prison.  Some  Republican  gentlemen  had  something  to  sell 
and  the  State  bought.  Then  in  putting  up  the  first  buildings 
contractors  stole  from  the  State.  One  has  pleaded  guilty  and 
a  former  superintendent  of  prisons,  appointed  by  Governor 
Hughes,  has  been  indicted.  This,  however,  is  foreign  to 
this  story,  except  as  a  light  to  show  that  working  the  State 
is  the  daily  vocation  of  many  agile-minded  persons  who  usually 
have  protection  near  the  top.  The  big  point  at  Great  Meadow 
prison  is  that  the  State,  now  for  three  consecutive  years,  has 
failed  to  put  up  the  industrial  buildings  at  Great  Meadow 
and  has  made  no  arrangement  as  to  shops  and  machinery. 
Warden  Homer  is  powerless  to  force  action  and  in  the  coming 
winter  will  have  practically  i,ooo  idle  men  on  his  hands  except 
on  open  days  when  some  of  them  can  be  used  in  grading  the 


THE  STATE  PRISONS 


81 


roads,  mending  fences  or  cutting  wood  in  the  many  acres  of 
Great  Meadow. 

This  is  known  as  the  "honor"  prison  of  the  State.  The 
exemplary  prisoners  are  sent  there  from  the  other  penal  insti- 
tutions for  good  conduct  and  industry.  It  is  the  final  clearing 
house  before  liberty  comes  to  the  convict.  The  grade  of  in- 
telligence is  higher  there  than  in  any  prison  of  the  State,  as 
the  men,  so  to  speak,  represent  the  aristocracy  of  crime.  They 
wander  at  will,  practically,  through  the  rolling  meadows  and 
woodland,  and  up  to  this  time  have  been  kept  busy  in  build- 
ing roads,  drains,  walks,  cutting  timber,  grading,  making- 
walls,  planting  thousands  of  young  trees,  beautifying  the  land- 
scape generally  and  winning  themselves  back  to  sturdy 
health;  but  these  improvements  are  now  nearly  finished  and 
at  best  require  for  the  future  only  a  few  small  gangs  of  men. 
Warden  Homer,  whose  work  stands  out  splendidly  in  prison 
progress,  has  sent  batches  of  his  prisoners  far  from  the  Great 
Meadow  institution  to  lay  out  roads,  cut  timber,  cultivate 
the  soil  and  drain  marshes  on  State  land. 

It  must  appeal  to  the  common  sense  of  any  business  man 
that  this  type  of  convict,  graduated  from  the  industrial  shops 
of  the  othef  prisons,  a  graduate  by  good  conduct  and  industry, 
should  have  the  opportunity  in  Great  Meadow  to  weave  cloth, 
make  blankets,  wooden-ware  and  shoes;  that  here  would  be 
the  chance  to  show  how  a  prison,  combining  farm  and  grazing 
land  with  manufacturing,  would  pay  its  own  way;  but  the 
State  steps  in  again  to  bedevil  the  situation  and  fails  to  pro- 
vide the  necessary  manufacturing  plant  and  buildings.  The 
site  is  there,  the  men  are  there,  and  an  able  Warden  is  there; 
but  a  Governor  and  a  Legislature  are  more  interested  in 
other  things,  not  so  plainly  the  business  of  the  State.  In  a 
year  or  two  scanty  appropriations  will  come,  the  buildings  will 
go  up  one  by  one,  machinery  will  take  its  place  to  assemble 
the  industries  of  the  men,  but  in  the  meanwhile,  the  State 
lags  in  a  most  vital  duty,  and  prisoners  ready  to  work  will 
pass  long  and  dreary  winter  days  in  idleness  wondering  at 
a  governmental  system  which  hobbles  industry,  wastes  money 
and  taps  the  health  of  those  immured  for  punishment.  Warden 
Homer  has  done  so  royally  well  with  his  farm  and  his  wood- 


82      WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 

land,  producing  so  much  required  by  the  prisoners,  that  there 
is  no  doubt  he  would  also  make  a  great  industrial  record  if 
permitted  by  the  men  who  do  or  don't  do  things  in  Albanj'. 

The  State  has  millions  of  dollars  invested  in  its  prison 
lands,  buildings  and  plants,  with  at  least  12,000  able-bodied 
convicts,  a  majority  of  them  mechanics,  or  artisans  if  you 
please,  but  it  neglects  its  buildings,  starves  its  mechanical 
plant  and  sentences  many  of  the  convicts  either  to  idleness 
or  half-time  work.  This  is  to  be  partly  expected  where  there 
is  no  central  head  for  anything.  Not  until  there  is  a  Depart- 
ment of  Industry,  as  the  chief  bureau  of  our  penal  institutions, 
can  any  efficient  business  results  be  looked  for.  Then  there 
will  be  classifications  of  industries  at  the  several  prisons;  a 
classification  of  convicts  in  respect  of  special  work ;  a  weeding 
out  of  those  least  fitted  for  one  thing  as  against  another;  and 
every  man  will  have  his  individual  record  to  tell  for  or  against 
him  as  the  days  for  his  parole  move  across  the  path  of  time. 

Then  it  will  be  understood  clearly  that  a  prison  is  a  place 
for  work  and  not  for  play;  that  the  State  demands  from  the 
non-ailing  convict  the  hours  of  work  for  an  honest  man  out- 
side, and  that  the  State  in  return  will  do  its  share  in  the 
moral  and  physical  raising  of  the  man,  paying  him  something 
meanwhile  for  his  industry  either  in  money  or  commutation 
of  time.  Can  a  prison  be  made  self-sustaining?  The  answer 
is  that  the  cost  of  each  prisoner,  counting  salaries  and  all  other 
expenses,  is  only  $3.40  a  week.  It  used  to  be  much  less.  We 
have  expert  tradesmen  of  all  kinds  in  the  prisons.  A  majority 
of  them  have  earned  a  fair  livelihood  outside  and  made  a 
profit  for  their  employers.  Only  a  small  percentage  of  them 
are  shiftless.  There  are  shops  in  the  prisons,  well  equipped  in 
up-to-date  machinery  which  earn  good  profits  for  the  State. 
But  this  same  efficiency  in  shops  and  in  machinery  is  lacking 
except  in  spots. 

As  to  the  general  efficiency  of  convict  labor,  an  interesting 
test  was  made  by  the  Conservation  Department  and  Clinton 
Prison  in  the  building  of  roads  in  the  Adirondacks,  work  which 
required  lumbering,  grading,  stone  laying  and  culvert  building. 
Both  free  labor  and  convict  labor  was  employed,  and  a  careful 
test  made,  with  the  proof  that  in  a  majority  of  cases  the 


THE  STATE  PRISONS 


83 


prison  labor  was  the  more  efficient — and  naturally  the 
cheapest. 

All  the  necessary  efficiency  will  come  when  we  have  a 
fearless  Governor  who  will  reorganize  the  entire  prison  sys- 
tem and  take  it  far  away  from  politics.  It  took  Indiana  all 
of  ten  years  to  do  the  work  and  Wisconsin  almost  as  long, 
but  the  political  atmosphere  is  no  longer  there,  nor  is  it  in 
several  other  States,  to  deaden  all  efficiency  and  make  slovenly 
the  conduct  of  all  things  relating  to  the  welfare  of  the  State 
and  its  prisoners. 


84      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


A  GLIMPSE  AT  THREE  PRISONS 

The  cost  of  New  York  prisons,  steadily  mounting,  may 
be  compared  by  looking  at  the  chart.  The  Colorado  institution 
is  really  self-sustaining.  Nearly  200  of  the  convicts  build 
miles  upon  miles  of  the  finest  county  roads  at  a  labor  cost 
of  $313.23  per  mile,  where  by  contract  the  cost  would  have 
run  from  $3,000  to  $5,000  a  mile.  Game  birds  are  raised  for 
State  distribution,  flowers  for  the  public  parks,  cattle  and 
horses  for  sale.  All  vegetables  and  fruits  required  are  raised 
on  the  farm  and  some  sold. 


New  ^oaK  States 
$3.15 

PfeK  mrW£  PER 
WEEK. 

Colorado  State. 
^t(H^T6lHT\^aY,  C06T 


14.96 


REVENUE  THROWN  AWAY 


85 


CONSERVATION. 

The  Conservation  Department  of  New  York  State  is  now 
in  trustworthy  hands.  There  are  some  byways,  to  be  sure, 
inheritances  of  vicious  days,  and  curable  only  by  team  work 
between  an  earnest  Governor  and  a  co-operating  Legislature. 
There  can  be  little  or  no  criticism  of  this  most  useful  depart- 
ment as  now  managed  by  Governor  Whitman's  appointee — 
Pratt  and  his  very  able  deputy — McDonald.  A  little  more 
earnestness  and  skill  in  the  development  of  the  shell  fisheries, 
and  the  greater  protection  of  migratory  fish,  which  come  to 
our  waters,  are  the  chief  administrative  features  calling  for 
distinct  improvement;  but  after  four  years  of  the  broadest  in- 
capacity, if  nothing  worse,  by  the  Dem^ocratic  Party,  it  is  too 
much  to  expect  a  general  reformation  in  the  second  year  of 
Governor  Whitman's  administration. 

But  the  trouble  with  this  great  arm  of  the  State  is  that 
millions  of  revenue  are  lost  to  the  Treasury.  The  Depart- 
ment not  only  should  be  self-sustaining,  but  in  addition  should 
earn  for  the  State  Treasury  money  enough  to  run  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  economically  administered.  The  hands 
of  the  pvesent  alert  and  forceful  head  of  the  Conservation 
Department  are  tied  either  by  legislative  enactment  or  con- 
stitutional prohibition,  and  as  a  result  sources  of  great  State 
income  cannot  be  utilized.  It  is  one  more  illustration  of  the 
lack  of  business  government  in  New  York. 

This  State,  20  years  ago,  adopted  in  its  constitution  a 
paragraph  which  said:  The  forest  preserve  *  *  *  shall  not 
be  sold,  or  exchanged  or  be  taken  by  any  corporation  public 
or  private,  NOR  SHALL  THE  TIMBER  THEREON  BE 
SOLD,  REMOVED  OR  DESTROYED."  This  prohibition 
is  still  alive. 

When  the  people  adopted  this  in  1894,  they  were  afraid 
"  of  the  timber  land  sharks  and  convinced  that  further  pro- 
fessional lumbering,  especially  in  the  North  woods,  would  de- 
stroy our  watersheds. 

We  knew  nothing  of  modern  methods  of  forestry,  and  in 
attempting  to  build  well  for  the  future,  we  really  hobbled 
the  growth  of  our  timber  and  threw  away  a  Treasury  revenue 


86      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


not  only  big  in  money  but  potential  in  the  employment  of 
labor  and  the  real  protection  of  our  forests. 

We  have  since  that  period,  thanks  to  President  Roosevelt's 
tremendously  valuable  work  for  conservation,  come  to  know 
something  of  forestry.  In  our  own  State,  the  unselfish  labor 
of  C.  R.  Pettis,  Superintendent  of  State  Forests,  has  spread 
the  light  among  those  who  think  of  to-day  and  to-morrow  in 
the  development  of  our  natural  resources. 

We  now  know  that  our  forests  are  helped  wonderfully 
by  scientific  lumbering.  It  is  no  longer  a  disputed  question. 
We  now  know  that  moisture  and  sunlight  are  essential  to 
the  advancing  life  of  young  trees;  that  thinning  out  the  old 
live  trees  and  taking  away  the  dead  ones,  lets  the  rain  through 
and  gives  old  Sol  a  chance  to  feed  that  oxygen  so  necessary 
to  forest  growth.  But  the  constitution  of  1894,  well  inten- 
tioned  at  the  time,  now  prohibits  us  from  cutting  full  growth 
trees,  from  using  the  dead  or  the  dying,  from  receiving  a  big 
revenue  for  the  State  and  from  pushing  the  steady  growth  of 
the  young  forest  trees.  We  are  years  behind  in  administrative 
efficiency;  wealthy  owners  in  the  Adirondacks,  in  portions 
inside  the  forest  preserve,  are  doing  what  we  cannot  do.  The 
Webbs,  the  Whitneys,  the  Rockefellers  and  others  lumber 
their  woodlands,  obtain  a  revenue,  build  roads  for  fire  pro- 
tection and  actually  increase  the  forest  growth. 

Our  big  men,  irrespective  of  party,  have  failed  to  come  to- 
gether and  cut  the  bonds  which  tie  the  State  to  a  useless  and 
costly  system  of  forest  protection.  Political  maneuvering, 
legislative  indifference,  fear  of  ignorant  public  criticism  and 
selfish  motives  have  kept  progress  in  the  background. 


LUMBER  U  i:,  ^-.-V.VOr  i'SE 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  FORESTS. 

We  have  roughly  about  1.800.000  acres  of  forest  land, 
about  six  per  cent,  in  the  Catskill  and  the  remainder  in  what 
generally  is  known  as  the  Adirondacks.  On  more  than  4  7  of 
this  we  have  merchantable  forests.  On  about  i  7  we  have 
forest  growth  not  of  merchantable  size.  The  remaining  2  7 
is  water  or  denuded  land,  much  of  it  reclaimable  for  forest 
growth.  Most  of  this  water  represents  the  beds  of  lakes 
and  ponds.  The  problem  of  what  to  do  becomes  all  the  miore 
interesting  by  the  fact  that  we  are  constantly  adding  to  the 
area,  and  have  now  before  us  a  proposed  constitutional  am.end- 
ment  to  expend  the  greater  part  of  Sio.ooo.ooo  more  on  forest 
land  by  mieans  of  a  50-year  bond  issue. 

From  the  careful  reports  of  State  foresters,  surveyors  and 
other  conservation  employees,  not  accurate  of  course,  for  lack 
of  appropriation,  but  fairly  so.  we  are  told  we  have  approxi- 
mately eight  billion  feet  of  board  measure  of  timber  sizes  and 
pulp  wood:  that  the  soft  woods  are  57  per  cent,  and  the  hard 
43- 

Now  these  m^any  millions  of  feet  board  measure  do  not, 
of  course,  include  the  smaller  or  stunted  trees  fit  for  firewood, 
posts,  fences,  etc.  They  include  only  merchantable  timber. 
This  forest  production  does  not  grow  as  fast  as  it  could  be 
m.ade  to  grow  owing  to  failure  to  let  in  all  the  rain  and  all 
the  sunlight,  by  cutting  the  full  growth  properly  and  by  re- 
moving dying  trees. 

The  Forestry  Experts  of  Northern  Europe  and  of  Ger- 
many, as  well  as  those  who  have  become  recently  known  in 
the  United  States,  figure  the  annual  normal  gro\s'th  of  trees 
under  proper  forest  cultivation  at  from  180  to  220  feet  per 
acre  per  year.  Taking  it  at  the  lowest  figure  New  York 
State  in  its  forest  area  could  cut  each  year  of  full  grown  trees 
not  less  than  200.000,000  feet  board  measure,  without  re- 
ducing the  forest  growth,  and  add  to  the  State  Treasury 
nearly  a  million  dollars.  The  dead  trees  and  brush  also  would 
be  taken  away,  thus  reducing  the  chance  of  fire,  and  the  lum- 
ber roads  built  into  the  woodlands  would  be  of  great  value 
to  the  forest  rangers  as  well  as  to  all  who  enjoy  the  beauties 


88      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


of  the  Adirondacks.  Specialization  of  the  rapidly-growing  pop- 
lar and  of  spruce  could  be  made  for  our  wood-pulp  mills 
thus  adding  materially  to  the  commercial  development  of 
the  State  and  the  employment  of  labor. 

When  we  take  into  view  the  fact  that  we  have  about  $20.- 
000,000  invested  in  the  forest  preserve,  that  the  fixed  charges 
including  sinking  fund  are  more  than  $350,000  against  the 
State  each  year,  would  it  not  be  good  policy  to  cut  our  full 
grown  timber,  say  5  per  cent,  a  year,  so  that  the  young  trees 
may  prosper  and  bloom  to  the  full.  Would  it  not  be  a  good 
policy  not  only  to  earn  the  $350,000  a  year  but  to  put  a  sur- 
plus from  the  forests  alone  of  at  least  half  a  million  a  year 
in  the  Treasury? 

There  is  another  very  important  view  of  this.  Our  lum- 
ber cutting  in  the  non-Government  owned  areas  of  the  State 
has  fallen  30  per  cent,  in  several  years.  The  cutting  is  four 
times  greater  than  the  growth  and  the  total  output  now  less 
than  900,000,000  feet.  We  use  16  times  that  amount.  It 
would  be  for  the  interests  of  all  concerned  to  produce  this 
lumber,  cheapening  the  cost  to  consumers,  making  sure  of  an 
ever-ready  supply  and  enriching  the  State  Treasury. 

Of  course,  there  is  nothing  new  in  all  this  to  the  real 
students  of  State  Government,  nor  to  the  real  friends  of  the 
forest  preserve.  Among  them  there  has  been  little  difference 
of  opinion  that  some  day  something  would  be  done.  All  con- 
cede the  forests  would  be  better  if  scientifically  lumbered. 
All  agree  that  new  growths  would  come  normally.  All  agree 
it  is  waste  to  have  mature  trees  die  and  litter  the  woodland. 
All  agree  that  revenue  is  desirable.  All  agree  that  labor 
would  benefit  and  commercial  interests  would  obtain  a  very 
necessary  product. 

But  the  best  of  these  men  can't  seem  to  get  together  on 
any  plan.  Gentlemen  of  intellect  in  the  law  and  others  of  re- 
nown in  their  own  lines  of  business  fear  the  trespass  of  the 
lumberman  in  our  great  woodland  preserves.  They  fear  the 
Government  cannot  safeguard  the  cutting  of  mature  timber, 
which  is  a  confession  by  them  that  they  think  Government  is 
a  failure.  Some  fear  that  we  have  not  as  yet  overcome  the 
partnership  between  politics  and  business.     They  want  to 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  FORESTS 


89 


wait,  the  Lord  knows  how  long.  A  few  believe  the  State  is 
rich  enough  to  waste  its  natural  resources  and  that  the  forests 
should  forever  remain  in  their  wild  state,  letting  decay  take 
its  course  and  new  forestry  methods  stand  still.  Then  we 
have  the  general  indifference  of  our  State  officials  and  of  our 
Legislatures.  The  latter  would  make  a  political  question  of 
a  business  fact.  The  former  are  more  engaged  with  their 
personal  public  ambitions  than  with  the  direct  care  and 
progress  of  the  State.  In  the  meantime  forest  growth  is  being 
stunted,  revenue  is  passed  by  and  the  commercial  interests  of 
the  State  plainly  injured.  Again  we  see  the  notorious  lack  of 
courage  and  plain  ability  in  State  Government. 


90      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


OUR  WASTED  WATER  POWER. 

But  the  forestry  end  of  the  State's  conservation  department 
is  only  one  of  three  distinct  features  where  progress  is  stopped 
in  Government,  resources  wasted  and  manufacturing  indus- 
tries crippled.  We  waste  in  water  each  year  horsepower 
measured  by  some  experts  as  equal  to  30,000,000  tons  of  coal, 
by  no  engineering  expert  at  less  than  15,000,000  tons. 

But  we  do  worse  than  that.  Nearly  every  Spring  we  have 
freshets  which  destroy  property,  delay  railroad  traffic  and 
cripple  labor.  The  waters  of  small  streams  run  in  torrents 
through  our  swollen  rivers  carrying  their  energy  in  electric 
power  to  the  ocean  or  the  lakes  there  to  be  lost  for  all  time. 
In  the  Summer  these  same  streams  and  small  rivers  run  dry 
or  half  so,  stopping  the  mills,  injuring  labor,  decreasing  manu- 
factures and  freight,  increasing  costs  and  mocking  the  policy 
of  a  State  which  permits  ruin  at  either  end  of  its  watershed 
policy. 

The  undeveloped  water  power  could  take  care  of  nearly 
all  our  industrial  enterprises,  could  be  sold  to  lighting  and 
transportation  corporations  and  bring  about  increased  cheap- 
ness in  traffic.  But  nobody  in  government  seems  to  care  about 
stream  regulation,  nobody  seems  to  bother  largely  about  the 
damage  of  spring  floods;  few  seem  to  think  of  State  revenue 
and  conservation — all  take  the  world  as  it  smiles  at  them,  and 
the  State  goes  along  as  blindly  as  a  prize-fighter  just  put 
out  of  his  job  by  the  newest  man  in  the  fistic  sky. 

Some  of  the  harm  we  have  had  with  us  has  come  from 
having  men  in  office  who  didn't  know  how  to  do  things,  to 
begin  with,  and  who  didn't  dare  do  some  things  for  the 
public  good.  More  of  the  harm  has  come  from  having  intelli- 
gent, but  selfish,  men  in  office  who  didn't  care  ten  cents  a  ton 
for  the  State,  where  their  own  future  steps  in  politics  came  into 
the  count  of  the  moment. 

The  potential  possibilities  of  our  water  power,  both  for 
profit  and  development  of  commerce,  hit  the  mind  of  Governor 
Frank  Higgins,  which  he  made  plain  in  his  term  as  Governor. 
His  mental  horizon  had  been  broadened  by  his  ownership  of 
rich  oil  lands — to  be  classed  as  natural  resources,  just  as  our 


OUR  WASTED  WATER  POWER 


forests  and  waters.  Higgins  was  a  sturdy,  unimaginative, 
decent  business  man,  politically  no  more  brilliant  than  a  June 
bug  in  frost  time,  but  always  eating  into  the  future  just  a 
little  bit  for  the  State.  The  author  of  this  book  served  with 
Mr.  Higgins  in  the  legislature,  and  can  say  he  was  a  well-set 
man  for  State  affairs.  But  Mr.  Higgins,  when  he  began  to 
grasp  the  big  power  hidden  in  our  forests,  and  had  shown 
human  intelligence  in  respect  of  our  then-growing  State  insti- 
tutions, was  moved  off  the  map  as  Mr.  Hughes,  in  all  the 
panoply  of  his  intellect,  came  in. 

So  once  more  when  we  were  about  to  get  something  of 
real  service  to  the  State,  as  an  opening  for  future  development 
of  our  natural  resources,  a  fairly  good  man  moved  out  and 
Governor  Hughes  flashed  his  mind  upon  the  screen  of  public 
thought.  He  made  his  legislative  programme  so  attractive  to 
the  altruistic  of  the  day  that  second-story  men  in  politics  at 
once  grew  busy  looking  after  the  small  but  sure  things  that 
men  grind  out  who  make  the  laws.  Governor  Hughes  passed 
by  the  heart-breaking  State  prison  situation  to  write  nice 
prose  on  direct  primaries.  What  mattered  the  sure  care  of 
the  State's  insane,  or  allegedly  insane,  while  the  intellectuals 
howled  for* a  Massachusetts  ballot  bill?  What  mattered  it  if 
innocent  girls,  motherless  or  worse  than  motherless,  were 
herded  in  State  correctional  institutions  with  the  mentally  or 
otherwise  viciously  depraved  of  their  own  age  and  sex?  Keep- 
ing grown  men  from  betting  on  horse  races  was  much  more 
to  the  point  with  Mr.  Hughes. 

So  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  a  bit  that  he  didn't  get  his 
mind  on  water  development  or  on  forest  revenue  but,  having 
in  his  thoughts  the  criss-cross  uses  of  insurance  moneys,  he 
spent  much  of  his  serious  time  in  framing  the  public  service 
law  as  a  curb  upon  the  too-rapid  thought  of  those  men  who 
would  finance  pennies  into  dollars  and  tax  the  people  on  the 
resultant  rise.  Since  the  time  of  Hughes  there  has  been  no 
man  of  force,  courage  and  plain  honesty  to  set  things  right 
for  the  people  on  this  water-power  question,  unless  it  be  devel- 
oped by  Governor  Whitman. 

This  was  still  a  very  live  question  when  Governor  Hughes 
resigned  his  office  to  go  to  the  Supreme  Court.    He  had 


92      WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


been  too  busy  with  other  subjects,  most  of  them  semi- 
political,  to  take  up  a  question  worthy  of  his  keen 
mind  and  great  energy.  Had  he,  with  the  great  esteem 
in  which  he  was  held,  gathered  some  firm-minded  men  just 
results  would  have  come  before  this  time.  Our  streams  would 
not  now  be  dry  in  Summer.  Our  surplus  waters  would  have 
been  impounded  to  give  millions  of  horsepower  for  sale,  by 
lease  or  rental  and  the  flow  of  our  streams  could  have  been 
regulated  to  avoid  the  floods  and  do  away  with  the  droughts. 
Governor  Dix  came  in  and  abolished  the  Fish  and  Game  Com- 
mission, the  Water  Supply  Commission  and  the  Forestry 
Board,  creating  what  is  now  the  Conservation  Department 
having  control  of  all  our  forests,  water,  fish  and  game.  This 
was  done  to  drive  out  Republicans  and  drive  in  Democrats. 
Sinecures  became  as  plentiful  as  penitents  at  one  of  Billy 
Sunday's  meetings.  Gentlemen  of  easy  virtue  drew  fat  sal- 
aries and  looked  upon  the  rich  domain  of  the  State  as  a  place 
for  extra-vacational  studies.  No  appropriations  for  real  serv- 
ices were  made.  The  job  hunters  and  not  the  taxpayers  were 
in  the  eye  of  the  Democratic  Party,  newly  come  to  power. 

Sulzer  came!  in  to  find  himself  soon  in  a  losing  fight  for 
his  political  life.  The  water  ring  slyly  organized  in  the  dying 
days  of  Dix  was  on  hand,  however,  to  exploit  the  State's 
waters  under  the  guise  of  a  hydro-electric  bill  to  furnish  the 
people  of  certain  communities  with  cheap  light  and  horse- 
power. They  introduced  the  bill  under  the  patronage  of 
Martin  H.  Glynn,  then  Lieutenant  Governor.  They  told  heart 
appealing  stories  of  the  billions  of  cubic  feet  of  water  going 
to  waste  each  year  while  electric  light  companies  were 
savagely  robbing  the  poor  consumer. 

Every  Democratic  promoter  in  the  State  and  a  few  mis- 
guided but  honest  persons  were  behind  this  hydro-electric 
power  bill.  Mr.  Charles  F.  Murphy  gave  it  his  official  O.  K. 
It  had  the  cherubic  blessing  of  Mr.  John  McCooey  and  other 
party  leaders.  Governor  Sulzer  killed  it.  Apart  from  destroy- 
ing or  at  least  menacing  the  interests  of  stockholders  in  light- 
ing corporations  created  by  the  State,  in  itself  vicious  enough, 
this  bill,  fathered  by  certain  business  men  in  the  so-called 
Democatic  Party,  would  not  have  accomplished  anything  of 


OUR  WASTED  WATER  POWER  93 


value  in  harnessing  the  power  of  the  Adirondack  watershed. 
It  would  have  established  a  limited  area  for  State  ownership 
and  operation  of  hydro-electric  power,  brought  about  the 
waste  of  millions  of  dollars  in  condemnation  deals,  enriched 
land  speculators  and  saddled  a  corrupt  machine  upon  the 
people.  The  area  of  operation  to  begin  with  was  limited  to 
about  I-I2  of  the  State,  with  areas  galore  thereafter  if  the 
golden  stream  flowed  as  expected.  Glynn,  when  Governor, 
made  another  futile  effort  to  commit  the  State  to  this  wild 
scheme  of  rapine,  but  a  Republican  assembly  kicked  it  into 
what  Mr.  Greene  in  his  short  history  of  the  English  people 
called  inocuous  desuetude. 

Thus  the  subject  of  water  reserve  power  first  taken  up  in 
the  last  year  of  Governor  Higgins  has  been  kicked  along  from 
Governor  to  Governor,  from  Legislature  to  Legislature,  with 
finally  in  this  second  year  of  Governor  Whitman,  no  genuine 
effort  to  relieve  conditions  that  injure  manufactures  and  keep 
from  the  Treasury  of  the  State  a  revenue  needed  by  the  sorely- 
stricken  taxpayers. 

Governor  Whitman's  usually  well-working  mind  has  been 
askew  a  bit,  owing  to  political  infection.  Where  study  of 
State  affairs  might  have  captured  his  genius  for  doing 
things,  he  was  led  from  duty  by  that  evanescent  criminal 
dubbed  by  poHtical  writers  as  the  "presidential  bug."  He  was 
well  bitten  by  this  parasite  of  big  men,  and  the  chaos  of 
neglect  in  State  affairs  had  come  before  he  could  catch  up 
with  his  plain  every-day  work. 

Governor  Whitman  is  a  man  of  courage,  as  he  has  shown 
in  many  a  hard-fought  and  perilous  hour.  If  his  official  steps 
have  been  unsteady,  even  to  the  point  of  more  than  surprise 
to  his  very  best  friends,  the  occasion  for  these  lapses  may 
have  passed  and,  in  a  new  uncloistered  atmosphere  of  duty, 
he  may  be  just  the  man  to  start  in  upon  the  road  to  do  things 
that  will  bring  money  to  the  State,  business  to  the  merchants, 
and  a  bit  of  labor  to  many  by  the  sane  utilization  of  our  great 
water  reserves. 

There  is  more  than  one  question  involved  in  the  settlement 
of  this  complex  water  situation  and,  of  course,  the  settlement 
must  come,  whether  to-day  or  to-morrow.    The  impounding 


94      WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


of  the  surplus  waters,  the  proper  location  of  reservoirs,  the 
necessary  flooding  of  lands,  the  regulation  of  the  flow  of 
streams,  the  care  necessary  to  give  mill  owners  what  they 
want  and  yet  use  some  of  the  surplus  energy  in  other  avenues 
is  a  big  State  question,  calling  not  only  in  its  proper  develop- 
ment for  administrative  clarity  and  well-trained  engineering, 
but  providing  some  agreement  between  the  State  and  propertj' 
owners  who  will  be  benefited. 

On  the  new  barge  canal,  men  who  call  themselves  decent 
citizens — and  still  think  they  are — took  from  the  State  Treas- 
ury big  money  for  so-called  "damages,"  and  then  took  from 
the  State  increased  water  power  for  nothing,  in  some  cases 
selling  their  surplus  to  persons  not  so  lucky. 

This  water  question,  great  in  all  its  aspects,  both  as  to 
profit  for  the  State  and  aid  to  the  mill-man  on  the  sometimes 
barren  stream;  big  in  its  potency  to  regulate  horsepower  for 
towns  and  villages;  valuable  for  what  it  can  do  for  the  bits 
of  streams  that  flush  the  edges  of  many  a  rich  meadow  or 
plough  land,  can  wait  for  settlement  longer,  perhaps,  than  Ihe 
question  of  what  we  shall  do  with  our  waste  wood  in  the 
timber  preserve.  We  need  little  capital,  if  any,  to  get  our 
money  from  the  soft  or  hardwoods  that  cover  all  the  acres  of 
the  north  lands,  but  holding  the  water  in  big  engineering  cups, 
developing  dams,  regulating  the  flow  in  one  place  and  diverting 
it  in  another,  taking  or  making  land,  needs  a  big  organization ; 
but,  before  that,  a  settled  State  policy,  non-elastic  as  against 
the  taxpayer.  The  thing  to  do  is  to  appoint  a  body  of  men 
representing  the  chambers  of  commerce  in  the  State  in  cities 
of  the  first  and  second  class,  with  counsel,  who  will  give  their 
work  free  for  the  public  good,  and  work  out  a  plan  that  will 
save  the  State  the  loss  each  year  of  at  least  20,000,000  coal-ton 
power,  stop  the  shutting  down  of  mills,  provide  for  them  at 
least  50  per  cent,  more  capacity,  conserve  labor  and  avoid 
waste. 

All  this  will  cost  money.  We  have  put  in  the  barge  canal, 
up  to  date,  about  $125,000,000,  and  we  shall  never  earn  the 
interest  cost.  We  have  put  into  so-called  "good  roads" 
$100,000,000  in  the  bond  issues  and  $5,000,000  a  year,  with  a 
rising  rate  for  repairs.  The  good  roads  of  the  first  $100,000,000 


OUR  WASTED  WATER  POWER 


95 


will  be  gone  while  we  all  live.  The  watershed  and  its  flow 
will  be  all  here  after  we  are  dead,  giving  potential  power  to 
the  commerce  of  the  day.  I  have  seen  engineer  after  engineer 
as  to  the  cost  of  all  the  work,  allowing  for  honest  men  and 
grafters,  for  v/eak  governors  and  those  with  some  spine,  for 
legislatures  that  may  be  of  fugitive  morality  or  bright  spots 
in  the  moving  show  of  government,  and  the  highest  cost  of 
this  watershed  improvement  is  put  at  $20,000,000,  and  the 
longest  time  of  completion  at  six  years — providing  the  com- 
mission in  charge  is  made  up  of  men  whose  character  is  not 
made  over  night  or  hurt  over  week  by  the  fortuitous  circum- 
stance of  the  time. 

One  great  engineer,  preferably  from  the  Army,  such  as 
General  Lucas,  would  do  for  the  watershed  of  New  York  what 
General  Goethals  did  in  the  Panama  strip.  With  a  man  of 
his  type  as  chairman,  and  the  rest  of  the  commission  selected 
by  the  chambers  of  commerce  of  New  York,  Buffalo,  Roches- 
ter, Syracuse,  Utica,  Albany  and  Troy,  the  State  soon  would 
have  a  proper  revenue  from  its  water  power,  and  upon  a  busi- 
ness basis  that  would  not  attack  the  interests  of  those  owning 
stock  in  lighting  and  power  companies. 

With  taxation  climbing  near  the  mortgage  point  of  every 
ordinary  man's  last  pocket  of  savings,  the  raising  of  revenue 
from  any  legitimate  sources  must  appeal  to  the  citizen  who 
wants  to  do  his  duty.  In  the  watershed  there  is  potential 
power  and  money.  The  head  of  the  Conservation  Department, 
clear-headed  and  willing  as  he  is,  cannot  do  anything  unless 
public  sentiment  and  taxpayers'  authority  force  a  practicable 
plan  upon  the  attention  of  an  open-minded  governor  and 
legislature. 

That  we  should  waste  each  year  15,000,000  tons  of  coal 
energy,  which  is  the  minimum;  that  we  should  hobble  the 
industries  along  our  ^streams  by  floods  and  droughts ;  that  we 
should  endanger  health  by  failing  to  keep  up  a  durable  flow 
of  water,  seems  less  than  understandable,  but  we  do  it  against 
the  safety  of  public  and  private  property.  Again  may  I  say 
that  a  business  governor  and  not  a  political  governor  is  what 
New  York  needs  more  than  anything  else.  It  needs  a  gov- 
ernor who  will  call  to  his  aid  the  best  minds  in  the  legislature, 


96     WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


no  matter  what  their  politics;  the  most  ardent  men  among 
the  editors  of  the  State,  granting  that  their  views  are  not 
varnished,  and  the  most  active  in  the  decent  civic  societies  in 
the  several  municipal  divisions  of  the  commonwealth. 


WHERE  THE  TAXPAYERS  LOSE  97 


CAMP  SITES  AS  REVENUE. 

We,  as  the  State  of  New  York,  own  several  millions  of 
acres  of  woodlands  and  waters,  nearly  all  in  what  is  known  as 
the  Forest  Reserve.  In  the  constitution  of  1894,  it  written 
that  no  bit  of  these  lands  should  be  leased  or  sold,  the  plain 
meaning,  as  the  debates  show,  being  to  stop  the  spoliation  of 
the  forests  by  those  who  would  put  lumber  into  money  over 
night  if  they  could. 

Now  it  is  held,  by  the  wise  judges  in  the  courts,  that  in 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  miles  of  water  courses  on  lake  shore 
in  our  woodlands,  we  cannot  lease  camp  sites  and  get  a 
revenue  for  the  State  while  we,  at  the  same  time,  could  give 
comfort  to  those  who  seek  health  and  pleasure,  with  a  wish 
to  pay  for  both.  On  the  legal  side  it  is  probably  true  that 
under  the  constitution  we  cannot  lease  our  own  property 
even  in  a  harmless,  if  money-making,  way.  The  author  of 
this  book  hesitates,  even  though  a  former  student  of  law,  to 
pass  an  opinion  upon  any  controverted  point  in  a  statute  or 
a  constitution,  having  in  mind  cases  where  the  appellate  divi- 
sion of  more  than  one  judicial  department  of  this  State  unani- 
mously risfversed  the  trial  Judge,  and  was  itself  unanimously 
reversed  by  the  Court  of  Appeals.  When  the  final  decision  in 
law  is  a  case  of  mental  dice-throwing,  dependent  largely  upon 
the  circumstances  of  the  hour  in  this  fast-flowing  world  of 
ours,  a  merely  tentative  person  in  law  has  no  right  to  aim  his 
mind  against  what  seems  to  be  the  plain  terms  of  the 
constitution. 

But  what  does  seem  strange,  in  this  rather  musty  way  we 
have  of  doing  things,  is  that  while  all  are  agreed  we  should 
earn  revenue  from  our  resources  of  forest  and  water,  and 
afford  health,  as  well  as  pleasure,  to  those  who  live  within  our 
State,  we  cannot  get  any  governmental  agency  to  start  the 
^  blocks  from  the  wheels  of  progress.  We  lack  revenue  to  care 
for  our  feeble-minded  in  the  decent  terms  of  the  day,  but  we 
discard  the  revenue  at  our  doors.  We  tie  ourselves  in  the 
technicalities  of  a  constitutional  clause  and  refuse  to  free 
ourselves  by  repealing  it. 


98      WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


So  it  is  that  we  find  in  our  ownership  in  the  Forest 
Preserve  more  miles  of  shore  suitable  for  camp  sites  along 
the  lakes  and  tributary  streams  than  we  could  have  on  all 
the  Hudson  River  twice  over.  The  State  maintains  all  this 
vast  area,  but  can  get  no  revenue;  neither  can  it  provide  any 
special  comfort  for  the  man  or  the  woman,  or  the  men  or  the 
women,  or  families  or  friends  who  would  have  camp  sites  and 
pay  for  them.  The  constitution  says  no  bit  of  our  forest 
domain  shall  be  leased.  In  this,  as  in  the  timber  of  the  forests 
and  the  horsepower  of  our  streams,  we  have  revenue  thrown 
away. 

As  near  as  can  be  figured,  we  have  about  600  miles  of 
shore  line  in  the  Forest  Reserves  suitable  for  camp  sites.  I 
am  against  the  proposition  that  if  relief  should  come  these 
camp  sites  should  be  leased  for  a  term  of  years  to  residents 
of  the  State  who  have  had  luck  in  money-making.  They 
would  then  become,  practically,  owners  for  a  time  of  the 
Forest  Reserve,  which  belongs  to  all,  and,  by  the  legerdemain 
of  money  and  influence,  would  win  a  permanent  residence. 
This  fear,  no  doubt,  has  stopped  in  the  legislature  for  several 
years  the  submission  to  the  people  of  an  amendment  that 
would  permit  the  leasing  of  forest  lands  abutting  on  the  lakes 
and  streams. 

A  camp  site,  one  to  each  half-acre  of  shore  line,  whether 
on  stream  or  lake,  not  longer  than  a  month  of  tenure,  should 
any  other  resident  of  the  State  be  waiting,  would  solve  the 
question.  The  applications  would  come  by  registered  letter 
to  the  Conservation  Department  and  be  settled  by  priority  of 
date. 

These  camp  sites  would  be  rentable  at  least  six  months  in 
the  year.  Let  us  assume  that  they  would  be  leased  only  one- 
half  that  period,  and  that  the  rental  price  would  be  $20  per 
half -acre  for  a  month.  This  would  give  the  State  a  big  revenue 
every  year  where  it  now  gets  nothing. 

Some  idiot  or  several  idiots  have  said  that  campers  in  any 
numbers  would  bring  about  forest  fires.  Of  course,  that  is 
the  last  thing  the  campers  would  want.  But  in  any  event  the 
answer  is  this:  In  1903,  the  damage  by  forest  fires  was 
$864,082;    acres    burned,    464,189;    cost    of  extinguishing. 


CAMP  SITES  AS  REVENUE 


99 


$153,763.95.  This  was  a  million  a  year  in  loss.  Two  years 
ago,  the  last  available  figures,  the  damage  was  $51,445  in  the 
entire  forest  preserve.  The  cost  per  acre  for  protection  has 
been  reduced  from  two  and  one-half  to  one  and  one-quarter 
cents.  The  railroads,  in  1908,  were  charged  with  burning 
143,471  acres.  In  1913  they  were  guilty  only  for  260  acres. 
The  hunters,  in  1908,  were  tagged  with  fires  that  destroyed 
75,212  acres,  and  two  years  ago  had,  with  much  sobriety,  got 
down  to  432  acres.  The  number  of  fires  in  1913  credited  to  all 
campers  was  64,  with  a  damage  of  $1,805.  These  campers 
went  where  they  willed,  so  to  speak,  but  under  the  General 
Campers  Plan,  as  proposed,  there  would  be  every  reason  for 
self-protection. 

It  will,  of  course,  take  a  constitutional  amendment  to  bring 
about  this  camp  site  proposition.  A  few  people  are  against  it 
on  the  ground  that  it  would  make  class  distinction,  that  it 
would  be  a  case  of  giving  the  more  fortunate  rights  that  the 
poor  or  less  lucky  could  not  get  in  land  and  water  owned  by 
all  the  people.  There  are  two  answers,  each  equally  good. 
Poor  persons  will  not  go  to  the  Adirondacks,  pay  big  railroad 
fares  and  other  expenses.  Poor  people  or  any  other  sort  are 
on  the  saifie  level.  The  first  applicants  for  camp  sites  will  be 
the  first  served.  The  State,  having  invested  millions,  has  at 
least  the  right  to  get  the  interest  on  its  money  and,  in  fact, 
a  little  more,  so  that  those  who  can  give  the  time  to  enjoy  all 
the  comforts  of  lake  and  mountain  at  nominal  expense  for 
tenancy  may,  by  their  contributions,  help  the  State  in  small 
part  to  maintain  its  charitable  institutions. 

There  has  not  been  sketched  here  the  general  administra- 
tion of  the  Conservation  Department.  It  would  be  unfair  to 
point  out  mistakes  in  the  fish  and  game  lines,  inasmuch  as 
reforms  are  in  force  against  the  mistakes  or  negligence  of 
Democratic  administrations.  The  department  now  gets  from 
game  licenses,  fines,  etc.,  about  $350,000,  and  costs  $750,000 
to  operate.  Of  course,  it  gives  the  State  a  useful  indirect 
revenue  by  increasing  the  game  birds  in  hatcheries,  propo- 
gating  fish,  and  generally  conserving  the  forests.  But  it 
ought  to  be,  as  a  department,  a  great  and  growing  asset,  and 
not  a  liability.    The  forests,  the  water-power  and  the  camp 


100    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


sites  ought  to  win  for  the  State  nearly  $3,000,000  in  revenue 
each  year,  the  first  two  helping  labor  and  manufactures  as 
well,  and  the  last  giving  health  and  pleasure  to  those  who 
would  pay  a  bit  of  the  capital  or  interest  debt  of  the  State 
for  its  purchase  of  2,000,000  royal  acres  of  woodland,  lakes 
and  streeuns  to  be  held  forever  for  the  people. 


OUR  WASTE  IN  ASYLUMS 


101 


GIRL  VAGRANTS  AT  $7.59  PER  WEEK. 

Chart  cost  for  maintenance  only  of  New  York  State 
Training  School  for  Girls,  Hudson,  N.  Y.,  from  direct  State 
appropriations.  Total  maintenance,  $120,174.80;  cost,  $7.19 
per  week;  adding  value  of  farm  products,  $7.59  per  week, 
per  inmate  in  1915. 


NOTE ; — These  girls  do  most  of  their  own  house,  laundry 
and  kitchen  work. 


102    WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


MONEY  WASTE  IN  BEDFORD  HILLS. 

Chart  cost  for  maintenance  only  of  New  York  State  Re- 
formatory for  Women,  Bedford  Hills,  paid  from  State  Treas- 
ury. Total  maintenance  cost,  $128,007.92;  average  weekly 
cost  for  each  inmate,  $6.64 — excluding  value  of  home  and 
farm  products,  $5.19. 


The  women  in  this  institution  are  between  16  and  30. 
They  cook,  bake,  do  their  own  housework,  work  in  laundry 
and  eating  rooms  and  yet  cost  the  State  $6.64  per  week  per 
inmate  last  year. 


HOIV  THE  MONEY  RUNS  AWAY 


103 


WASTE  IN  OUR  CHARITIES. 

Women  of  the  Prison  Reform  Association,  who  have  a 
splendid  sense  of  the  good  things  that  can  be  done  either  in 
reforming  the  wicked  or  in  helping  the  feeble-minded,  have 
no  sense  at  all  when  the  question  of  spending  the  State's 
money  is  in  mind.  These  gentle  women  are  responsible  for 
much  of  the  extravagant  cottage  system  now  imposed  upon 
the  State  in  some  of  its  penal,  correctional  and  charitable  insti- 
tutions. There  is  costly  waste  in  building  and  in  administra- 
tion; indeed,  so  costly  that  the  orderly  expansion  of  these 
asylums,  if  continued  under  the  present  plan,  will  pile  upon 
the  State  new  obligations  amounting  to  millions  a  year. 

Only  last  autumn — that  is,  1915 — there  was  dedicated  in 
Letchworth  Village,  home  for  feeble-minded  and  epileptics,  an 
attendant's  cottage  to  house  48  employees.  The  cost  of  the 
building,  exclusive  of  the  ground,  is  $50,000;  that  is  more 
than  $1,000  per  attendant.  A  model  system  of  building  such 
as  offered  and  designed  by  several  well-known  architects,  and 
to  be  made  a  type  for  all  State  institutions,  would  not  cost 
$500  per^inmate,  affording  comfort,  privacy  and  all  that  our 
expanding  civilization  demands.  Extravagant  as  is  this 
attendants'  home  in  Letchworth  village — and  it  is  only  one 
of  several  yet  to  be  put  up — its  cost  per  inmate  is  less  than 
that  of  several  cottage  colonies  sandpapered  into  legislative 
existence  in  the  last  year  of  Mr.  Hughes  as  Governor.  These 
built  after  the  views  of  several  architects,  one  differing  from 
the  other  in  institutional  esthetics,  have  cost  as  much  as 
$1,500  per  room  per  patient..  The  first  thing  in  starting  a 
new  home  is  to  get  a  Board  of  Managers.  Then  they  get 
an  architect  and,  lest  the  market  be  suddenly  closed  to  them, 
they  get  a  superintendent  and  part  of  a  staff  before  there  are 
,  any  buildings  completed  or  any  persons  to  supervise..  All 
they  need  to  start  the  wheels  of  progress  is  an  appropria- 
tion. After  they  get  it  there  is  nobody  to  control  the  method 
of  its  spending  but  themselves.  Letchworth  village  may  be 
called  the  Tuxedo  Colony  in  the  State's  enterprise,  the  per 
capita  cost  now  being  about  $9.50  a  week,  for  each  of  the  feeble- 
minded in  that  delightful  place,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether 


104    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


with  all  the  pomp  and  extravagance  of  this  spot  in  the  sunny 
hills  of  Rockland,  that  it  has  any  claim  of  aristocracy  when 
challenged  by  the  new  home  for  women  misdemeanants  in 
Valatie,  Hudson  County.  There  we  have  a  plant  which  when 
finished  is  to  have  21  cottages,  each  holding  25  patients,  each 
room  private  with  all  the  arrangements  of  a  modern  hotel, 
including  electric  lights  and  each  cottage  with  its  own  kitchen. 

The  cotttages  built  to  hold  25  inmates  cost  $35,000  each. 
There  is  the  cottage  laundry,  the  cottage  bake  shop,  and  to 
make  expenses  doubly  sure  there  is  a  separate  heating  plant 
as  well  as  laundry  and  bake-shop  for  each  building.  No  ap- 
propriation was  made  this  year  for  completing  the  remainder 
of  the  cottages,  nor  was  any  money  provided  for  the  proposed 
new  administration  building,  hospital  or  very  necessary  barns 
if  the  farm  products  are  to  be  properly  housed. 

The  women  sent  there  must  be  at  least  30  years  old, 
must  have  been  convicted  at  least  five  times  of  petty  offenses, 
mostly  drunkenness.  This  costly  home  with  its  many  hun- 
dreds of  acres  was  won  from  the  State  by  the  women  prison 
reformers  in  the  fond  hope  that  in  these  classic  surround- 
ings the  many  times  convicted  women  would  be  guided 
back  to  virtue  and  sobriety.  Here  they  have  many  Milch 
cows,  hundreds  of  chickens,  lots  of  garden  vegetables,  acres 
of  potatoes  and  native  bacon  and  pork.  The  woman  who  gets 
drunk  four  times  and  is  convicted  must  get  drunk  once 
again  and  be  caught  at  it  to  entitle  her  to  the  courtesies  of 
this  establishment. 

As  there  are  few  inmates  as  yet  and,  as,  in  the  completed 
homes,  there  is  more  room  than  present  demands  call  for,  it 
is  not  at  all  surprising  that  the  warden  moved  from  his  com- 
paratively shabby  home  to  occupy,  for  a  time  at  least,  one  of 
the  25-room  cottages.  Why  there  should  be  a  male  warden 
with  a  male  staff  of  this  sort  passes  all  understanding,  except 
that  the  warden  was  appointed  from  Washington  County  in 
the  days  of  Governor  Dix,  the  gentleman  being  a  political 
lieutenant  of  Mr.  Dix's  business  partner,  Mr.  Huppuch,  leader 
of  Washington  County.  The  additional  fact  that  this  warden 
was  on  the  ground  drawing  salary  before  there  were  any  cot- 
tages or  any  inmates  is  only  an  illustration  of  that  sure  pre- 


WASTE  IN  OUR  CHARITIES 


105 


vision  controlling  the  Democratic  party  in  the  days  of  Dix, 
which  added  more  than  3,500  gentlemen  of  varying  degrees  of 
non-distinction  to  the  State  payroll. 

But  granting  that  nice  cottages,  fresh  milk  and  eggs, 
woodland,  stream  and  valley,  and  home  cured  bacon  will  do 
much  to  wean  these  women  from  what  we  call  dissolute 
lives,  it  might  at  least  have  flashed  across  the  apprehension 
of  the  founders  that  a  well  equipped  industrial  building  would 
be  a  necessity.  There  some  women  already  well  taught  in 
the  making  of  things  for  the  home  could  earn  their  way. 
There  other  women  less  fortunate  could  be  shown  how  to 
knit  and  weave,  how  to  make  willow-ware  or  brooms;  how 
to  make  underclothing  and  thus  in  part  supply  the  needs  of 
the  many  State  Asylums.  It  will  probably  be  years  before 
this  institution  is  finished  judging  by  the  meagre  appropria- 
tions this  year  and  last  year,  and  in  Mr.  Glynn's  year,  for  most 
necessary  improvements  in  many  of  the  hospitals  and  charita- 
ble buildings  of  the  State.  It  is  just  as  well,  however,  for 
the  expenditure  of  several  millions  by  incompetent  Boards 
of  Managers — $200,000  here  and  $300,000  there — may  well 
wait  an  orderly  and  comprehensive  plan  for  the  management 
of  all  correctional,  curative  and  charitable  institutions. 

Other  States  studying  both  economy  and  progress  have 
legislated  out  of  life  all  the  Boards  of  Managers  and  have 
put  all  the  expenditures  both  for  maintenance  and  building 
in  the  hands  of  a  Board  of  Control  which  purchases  all  the 
coal  and  other  big  supplies  for  the  prisons,  asylums  and  char- 
itable homes,  standardizing  all  employment  and  creating  a 
general  system  of  non-costly  administration.  A  standard  set 
of  building  plans  and  of  heating  and  lighting  is  a  part  of  this 
new  forward  plan  for  efficiency  in  many  States  with  a  result- 
ing decrease  in  all  costs.  In  New  York  State  aside  from  the 
topsy-turvy  and  wasteful  plans  for  buildings  we  find  one  de- 
partment paying  20  cents  a  ton  more  for  coal  than  another, 
a  cent  a  pound  more  for  meat  and  so  on  in  expenditures  which 
run  up  in  the  millions.  We  find  one  institution  costing  more 
than  $1500  per  bed  and  another  built  at  a  cost  of  $970  a  bed, 
another  at  $1,200  a  bed;  when  a  systematic  plan  would  re- 
duce the  cost  to  from  $500  to  $600. 


106    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


The  appropriations  at  this  last  session  of  the  legislature 
for  our  penal,  charitable  and  curative  purposes,  reaches  the 
enormous  total  of  $13,821,950,  distributed  as  follows: 


In  Indiana  or  Wisconsin,  for  instance,  these  three  great 
departments  would  have  their  expenditure  controlled  from  one 
source.  All  the  flour,  coal,  meat,  etc.,  would  be  purchased  at 
one  price,  the  only  fluctuation  being  the  difference  in  freight 
rates  to  the  several  institutions.  In  this  State  hundreds 
of  different  persons  will  spend  the  money.  Here  we 
find  the  State  Asylums  paying  $4.46  a  barrel  for 
rolled  oats  and  the  State  Charities  $4.85  a  barrel;  one 
paying  $3.83  a  barrel  for  corn  meal  white,  and  another 
$4.02  for  the  same.  Ten  years  ago  it  cost  New  York  $9,000,- 
000  to  run  these  institutions  as  against  almost  $14,000,000  to- 
day, and  in  the  intervening  period  we  have  done  nothing  of 
value  toward  standardizing  our  methods  or  in  promoting  that 
economy  and  efficiency  in  which  so  many  other  States  lead. 
If  there  be  an  incompetent  Superintendent  in  any  one  of  the 
Asylums,  the  State  Hospital  Commission  cannot  remove  him. 
If  he  be  a  drunkard  or  a  drug  fiend  they  are  equally  power- 
less. All  they  can  do  is  to  inform  the  Board  of  Managers  and 
there  the  matter  rests.  If  there  be  a  wasteful  or  thieving 
steward  the  result  is  the  same.  There  may  be  only  one  or 
two  persons  on  the  Board  of  Managers  at  all  competent  or 
willing  to  do  anything  and  they,  too,  are  powerless  against 
an  indifferent  or  negligent  majority.  Only  a  short  time  ago 
the  superintendent  of  a  big  State  institution  was  notoriously 
a  drunkard.  The  managers  actually  had  given  him  leave  of 
absence  more  than  once  to  recover  from  his  debauches.  Eve.i 
when  charges  were  brought  they  defiantly  declined  to  receive 
them.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  with  this  condition  of  things  u 
bachelor  superintendent  of  a  big  State  hospital  lives  in  a 
$22,000  house  paid  for  by  the  State,  has  a  housekeeper,  cook 
and  chambermaid,  light,  heat,  food  and  laundry  in  addition  to 


State  Asylums   

Charitable  institutions 
Prisons   


$8,136,076 
3,834.205 
1,851,669 


JFASTE  IX  OUR  CHARITIES 


107 


his  annual  salary  of  $4,700?  Is  it  any  wonder  the  records 
show  240  quarts  of  milk  and  200  pounds  of  meat  in  a  month 
consumed  in  the  superintendent's  house?  Is  it  strange  that 
other  superintendents  have  added  to  the  wages  of  a  cook, 
chambermaid  and  waitress  a  coachman  or  a  chauffeur  at  the 
expense  of  the  State?  Surely  it  is  not  odd  therefore  to  find 
lack  of  system  everywhere,  and  only  in  spots  a  real  attempt 
by  some  individual  to  serve  the  State.  He  does  this  of  his 
own  initiative  as  there  is  no  guiding  force  anywhere  to  say 
how  things  shall  be  done.  Such  is  the  way  of  the  State  Ad- 
ministration. 


The  Letchworth  village  home  for  feeble- 
minded of  all  ages,  built  on  the  cottage  colony 
plan,  and  laid  out  so  as  to  have  the  highest 
possible  overhead  costs,  is  called  the  Tuxedo 
colony  among  the  State's  charitable  institu- 
tions. It  now  costs  the  State  $9.50  per  week 
per  patient,  is  run  by  a  board  of  managers, 
and  illustrates  clearly  the  uncontrolled  fashion 
in  which  new  enterprises  are  begun  by  the 
State. 


108    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


PER  CAPITA  COSTS. 

When  the  reader  takes  in  view  that  the  insane,  the  feeble- 
minded, the  criminal  and  the  purely  indigent  of  this  State 
are  increasing  in  our  public  institutions  at  least  twice  as  fast 
in  percentage  as  the  general  population  of  the  State  increases, 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  question  of  expense  is  vital.  We  are 
now  not  only  shamefully  overcrowded  in  our  institutions,  but 
the  more  we  get  the  greater  is  the  per  capita  tax,  and  we  are 
plainly  in  the  position  where  we  must  get  down  to  a  basis  of 
efficient  administration.  We  have  now  in  our  State  asylums 
for  the  insane  approximately  33,000  patients,  and  more  than 
6,000  employees  of  all  grades.  We  have  in  the  State  institu- 
tions controlled  by  the  Board  of  Charities  10,000  inmates  and 
2,000  employees.  So  here  we  have,  apart  from  our  prisons, 
an  inmate  population  of  at  least  43,000,  with  8,000  employees, 
with  buildings  wastefully  designed  and  hundreds  of  acres  of 
land  unimproved.  The  lack  of  central  authority  is  everywhere 
apparent. 

When  we  find  that  in  the  State  asylums  for  the  insane  the 
salaries  and  wages  increased  in  one  year  more  than  $220,000 
while  provisions  decreased  $134,000,  notwithstanding  increase 
in  price,  we  know  some  of  the  cause  for  the  ever-rising  budget. 
When  fuel  and  light  cost  almost  $900,000  for  a  year  in  33 
institutions,  apart  from  prisons,  we  may  have  some  thought 
that  business  efficiency  should  play  some  part  in  the  enormous 
expenditures  with  which  we  are  being  faced.  It  is  a 
condition  requiring  the  earnest  study  of  men  who  have  desire 
to  lower  taxation,  and  ability  to  work  on  business  lines. 
Nothing  of  value  can  be  looked  for  from  State  officials  or 
from  the  Legislature  until  public  opinion  gets  firmly  and 
steadfastly  behind  a  well-thought  out  plan  of  reform.  The 
business  of  sandbagging  the  State  goes  on  from  year  to  year, 
permitted  largely  by  the  indifference  of  good  citizens. 

When  we  find  the  per  capita  cost  of  provisions  in  one 
place  $81.52,  in  another  $62.75,  in  another  $48.37,  and  in  an- 
other $102.36,  we  know  that  comes  in  great  part  from  lack  of 
good  administration.  When  we  find  the  per  capita  cost  per 
year  for  salaries  and  wages  to  be  $284.68  in  one  institution, 


PER  CAPITA  COSTS 


109 


$90.28  in  the  next  one,  $300.52  in  a  third,  $101.48  in  a  fourth, 
$74.60  in  another  and  $139.79  elsewhere,  we  have  further  illus- 
tration of  the  queer  costs  that  political  control  piles  up  against 
the  taxpayer.  When  we  have  one  charity  home  spending 
$126,000  in  salaries  at  $175.35  per  capita  and  another  spending 
$128,000  at  only  $90.28  per  capita,  we  can  readily  see  what 
economical  administration  could  do  for  the  State  Treasury. 

The  farm  and  garden  cost  in  one  asylum  is  $25.18  per 
patient;  in  a  second  $16.54,  in  a  third  $6.95,  m  a  fourth  $15.33, 
and  in  a  fifth  $5.33  per  inmate  per  year.  In  one  State  hospital 
we  get  economy  in  provisions,  in  another  we  have  cheap  coal 
expenditure,  in  another  household  stores  are  well  managed, 
in  a  fourth  the  per  capita  expenditure  for  lawns  and  grounds 
is  kept  well  within  the  limits.  This  is  true  of  clothing  in  one 
institution.  In  one  home  for  the  feeble-minded  the  cost  of 
medicine  per  inmate  is  twice  that  in  another  similar  in  all 
respects.  If  the  several  economies  in  one  institution  and 
another  could  be  enforced  in  all,  the  saving  would  run  into 
the  two  million  mark,  taking  all  the  buildings  under  control 
of  the  State  Hospital  Commission  and  the  State  Charities. 
If  in  addition  to  this  bit  of  efficiency  there  should  be  well- 
managed  industries  and  farms,  the  per  capita  cost  would  soon 
get  within  the  ordinary  limits  of  a  business  administration. 
To  this  the  State  must  set  itself  the  task  so  many  cities  are 
doing  so  well.    Is  it  not  startling  to  see  this  table: 


110    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


ANALYISIS  OF  COST  FOR  LIGHT  AND  HEAT  IN  STATE 
CHARITABLE  INSTITUTIONS  OF  NEW  YORK. 


Percentage 
cost  of  fuel  and 
Yearly  cost  of       Actual  expendi-    light  to  all 
Name  of  fuel  and  light  tures  for  fuel  expendi- 

Institution.  per  inmate.  and  light.  tures. 


Bedford   

$36.92 

$15,396.22 

12. 

32.50 

10,434.43 

8.7 

Oxford   

26.96 

5,284.77 

10.7 

25,38 

18,753.07 

8.7 

Albion    .  .  . ;  

26.50 

6,493.46 

8.9 

rlwuse  of  Refuge.... 

13.94 

11,534.84 

6.1 

20.66 

12,290.64 

10.1 

h  ewark   

16.36 

13,532.51 

10.7 

12.61 

19,243.57 

8.4 

29.76 

4,166.09 

6.1 

Craig  Colony   

22.34 

32,398.61 

10 

Soldiers  Home  

28.90 

37,411.52 

11.9 

Thomas  Indian  School 

23.03 

3,962.01 

8.7 

41.11 

5,179.76 

9 

West  Haverstraw  ... 

21.76 

1,653.96 

5 

ANALYSIS  OF  COST  OF  FUEL  AND  LIGHT  IN  THE  STATE 
HOSPITALS  FOR  THE  INSANE  IN  NEW  YORK. 


Tons  Aver- 

Cost  of  fuel  and  of  coal  used  age  purchase 

Name  of  light  per  year,      Total  cost  of  per  inmate,  price  of  coal. 

Institution  per  inmate.       coal  per  year.  per  year.  per  ton. 


Hudson  River  . . 

$26.86 

$82,711.12 

.7.70 

$3.50 

Middletown  .... 

13.12 

26,140.65 

4.72 

2.76 

Utica   

20.16 

29,084.84 

5.50 

3.41 

Willard   

16.73 

38,877.54 

5.90 

2.83 

Buffalo   

16.75 

34,102.43 

7.25 

2.32 

Binghamton    . .  . 

24.80 

58,276.98 

11.10 

2.32 

St.  Lawrence   .  . 

26.29 

51,485.26 

8.20 

3.22 

Rochester   

22.50 

32,718.21 

7.35 

3.10 

23.58 

26,483.06 

6.60 

3.70 

Kings  Park  .... 

15.72 

63,459.38 

5.58 

2.83 

Long  Island  . . . 

15.68 

12,484.23 

5.10 

3.08 

Manhattan 

11.45 

53,910.65 

4.50 

2.47 

Central  Islip  .  . . 
*Mohansic   

19.68 

97,186.50 

6.90 

3.04 

35.23 

2,149.38 

5.50 

6.47 

♦Anthracite. 


PER  CAPITA  COSTS 


111 


The  author  has  picked  out  in  the  foregoing  tables  all  of 
the  charitable  institutions  and  all  of  the  State  hospitals  for 
the  insane.  It  will  be  noticed  that  light  and  heat  cost  $41 
per  year  for  each  inmate  in  one  institution  and  less  than  $12 
per  year  per  inmate  in  another.  In  several  of  the  State  build- 
ings there  are  seven  tons  of  coal  per  year  per  inmate  and  in 
others  much  less  than  five  tons  a  year,  which  with  many 
thousands  of  patients  runs  the  waste  up  to  big  money.  A 
study  of  the  tables  show  radical  differences  in  efficiency  and 
cost. 

When  an  institution  like  the  Hudson  River  State  Hospital 
with  more  than  3,000  patients  burns  more  than  $80,000  of  coal 
in  a  year  at  a  cost  of  $26.86  per  inmate,  it  ought  to  startle  the 
taxpayers. 

When  Middletown  Asylum  with  practically  2,000  inmates 
runs  along  at  $13.12  per  person  per  year,  while  St.  Lawrence 
costs  $26.29  a  head  with  its  2,000  patients,  there  is  surely  room 
for  a  system  of  efficiency.  The  coal  bills  of  many  of  these 
institutions  go  above  $40,000  a  year  and  some  above  $50,000. 
When  we  recall  that  there  are  more  than  40,000  inmates  in 
the  retreats  for  the  charitable  and  the  insane  the  lowering 
of  the  per  cgfpita  cost  is  a  very  serious  matter.  In  Middletown 
the  coal  consumption  for  instance  is  only  4.72  tons  per  year 
per  inmate,  while  in  Oxford,  it  is  7.25;  in  Bedford,  9.04;  in 
Binghamton,  8.80;  in  Long  Island,  5.10;  Bath,  10.48;  Hudson 
(for  girls),  8.12. 

The  real  saving  in  money  will  come  only  when  all  fuel- 
saving  appliances  are  used  by  the  State.  This  also  will  bring 
about  a  further  saving  in  labor  and  easily  cut  the  costs  in  this 
one  department  of  light  and  heat  by  40  per  cent,  a  year.  The 
Governors  and  the  Legislatures  by  failing  year  after  year  to 
modernize  the  heating  and  lighting  plants  have  cost  the  State 
in  wasted  money  far  into  the  hundreds  of  thousands.  An- 
tiquated heating  plants  and  defective  boilers  have  long  been 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the  Legislature,  but  it  was  not 
until  Governor  Whitman  came  in  that  any  practical  work  was 
begun  to  map  out  all  the  defects,  estimate  the  costs  and  plan 
for  the  future.  The  State,  however,  is  doing  it  only  by  piece- 
meal instead  of  voting  more  than  a  million  dollars  to  clean  up 


112    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


the  situation.  The  State  also  should  take  the  initiating  of 
these  improvements  out  of  the  hands  of  the  superintendents 
and  the  Board  of  Managers  and  have  it  done  by  one  central 
authority.  These  Board  of  Managers  frequently  obstruct  the 
State  ofBcials,  as  they  did  in  Western  States  until  they  were 
wiped  out.  It  is  only  a  short  time  ago  that  although  the 
State  Architect,  the  State  Hospital  Commission  and  the 
Governor  were  united  upon  an  economical  plan  of  spending 
money  on  the  Manhattan  State  Hospital,  that  certain  of  the 
Board  of  Managers  obstructed  every  effort  to  stop  the  erection 
of  new  buildings  not  framed  on  the  former  extravagant  type. 
There  are  many  other  Boards  of  Managers  in  the  State  who 
cannot  yet  see  the  good  of  new  type  buildings  which  will 
give  more  room  at  less  cost  and  also  steadily  reduce  the  ex- 
penses of  administration.  There  will  be  no  real  reform  until 
all  direct  control  is  centered  in  Albany  and  not  until  then 
will  the  output  of  manufactures  and  farm  produce  pay  in 
greater  part  for  the  keep  of  the  inmates. 


STATE  BOARD  OF  CONTROL 


Paid  Board  of  five  members  —rovr  men  undone  woman 

Term  —  five  years  —  one  appointed  each  year 

Administrative  Board  of  all  state  charitable  and  per}al  irtsli  tutions. 

Supervision  of  all  county,  city ,  and  private  charitabje  and  penal  institution  i 


This  Board  acts  as. 
Board  of  parole. 
Commission  in  Lunacy. 
Probation  Board 
Board  of  Relief 


This  Board  also  Supervises: 

State  Aid  to  OcpertdenT  Children 
finotvn  as  rhe  trainers'  Pension  Larv. 


Adminiitrction  of 
Proiation  Law. 
Courts  plaza  ca  probation, 
'^ho froiution  ofliczrs 
tctin^  uot^ir  Boord  of 


State  Charitable,  and  Penal  Institutioc^s 

Some  of  the  chief  duties  of  this  Board  are : 
I.  Administration    4  Purchase  of  Supplies 

2  Supervision,        5  Audit  of  tills. 

3  Insppctlcn.  5   Transfer  of  Inmate  j  tn  and  frcn. 


Institutions 

for  t^enfitl 

Defectives 

Penal  and 
Reformatory 
Institutions 


County 

■ind  City 

Charitable 

and  Penal 

Inst 

tutlons. 

Fr/va  re  Institutions 


Urhni  such  as  tivspfWs, 
homef^iniiins  Asscc/oTion^ 
Orphanages,  SonaTon'a,  CTc. 


35  County 

Asyfvfnj  fsr 
Ch/vni'clnsani, 


tJliltvaukic 

SCounty 

hospiTol 

54  Count) 

Tubercdoiis 

Houst  of 

tor  Iht 

Qncf  City 

Sanatoria. 

Corr.cHm. 
2  Por,l,in- 

Insane. 

Pocrti  ousts 

lApprere  iiTis 
andbuiidinj 

/  Transfer 
Inmate',  ro 

1  Appnre 
Sites  and 

phns. 

3  Transfer 

and  frofri. 

hil/tng  plji^ 

i.flifXCt 

ln/tiol*%  fre^ 

?..  Inspect. 

I  Inspin. 

Lducationol 

Tubercular 

Institutions 

Sanatoria 

!l4t. 

Ne^r/ltfn 

Htme 

*S,utlit,n 

Hospital 

HtSflltl 

tloipittl 

f«-/Ae 

hc/Ttt  for 
Frfilt-Mi^ 

for  tht 

fir  n. 

Crimina/ 

Imer. 

InSKe 

Insane 

Stare 

<Hndi,srrhl 

fteforitiatofy 

rhr  Women 

(For  Men) 

(,.f,r^eu,y, 

Schett 


School 
far.  die. 
Oeaf 


School 
fer  1h, 
Blind 


Snare 
Puilic 
School 


WirKshop 
for  the 

Blind 


State 

Tubtrcfhsis 


Tamahomh 
LoKt  Cemp 

^'onusliaccnt 
Casts) 


Binder 

Hlfhwoj 

T*int 

Consrrid:^ 

Plonr 

CompS 

■In  the proeets  of  const nctiet. 


FIG.  21— CHART  SHOWING  THE  FUNCTIONS  AND  DUTIES  OF  THE  STATE  BOARD  OP  CONTROL  OP  WISCONS^tN. 


STATE  HOSPITAL  IXEFFICIEXCY  1  V.\ 

STATE  HOSPITALS. 

Here  we  have  in  actual  costs  something  which,  of  course, 
would  startle  any  business  corporation  when  discovered  and 
cause  a  complete  reconstruction  of  the  heating  and  lighting 
system  in  our  State  institutions.  Two  mechanical  engineers 
who  investigated  three  State  hospitals  for  the  author  of  this 
book,  disagree  less  than  seven  per  cent,  in  their  conclusions. 
One  puts  the  saving  in  fuel  and  labor  at  $320,000  a  year;  the 
other  at  $290,000,  and  with  much  increased  efficiency  of  plant. 
The  State  Architect,  Mr.  Lewis  F.  Pilcher,  who,  with  one  of 
his  assistants,  Mr.  Nicoll,  has  gone  elaborately  into  the  ques- 
tion, tells  me  that  a  figure  of  $300,000  a  year  saving  in  fuel 
cost  is  not  far  out  of  the  way. 

It  must  not  be  assumed  that  this  almost  criminal  expendi- 
ture of  money  is  all  caused  by  wasteful  management  in  the 
several  institutions — much  of  it  is  an  inheritance  from  legisla- 
tive mismanagement  or  the  neglect  of  plain  duty  by  the  Gov- 
ernors and  heads  of  departments  of  our  day.  In  some  asylum.s 
there  are  antiquated  boilers'  which  eat  up  coal  and  require 
a  maximum  of  labor.  Time  after  time  the  Legislature  has 
failed  to  make  the  required  appropriations.  Sometimes  the 
items  have  gone  to  the  executive  chamber  and  the  gentleman 
there,  seeking  a  fugitive  reputation  as  an  economist,  has  ve- 
toed the  items.  No  man  did  more  of  this  than  Martin  H. 
Glynn  and  with  his  eyes  open  as  to  the  damage  he  was  doing. 
First  he  asked  for  a  direct  tax  bill  to  meet  the  plain  necessi- 
ties of  pressing  institutional  government  and  then  himself 
abandoned  it  at  the  advice  of  cheap  politicians  in  his  party 
who  feared  the  result  on  the  coming  elections.  Then  having 
in  a  message  to  the  Legislature  advocated  a  bond  issue  of 
$27,000,000  for  repairs,  construction  and  general  rehabilitation 
of  our  asylums,  reformatories  and  prisons,  and  having  been 
defeated  in  this  easy  method  of  covering  up  direct  costs,  he 
ruthlessly  cut  from  the  appropriation  and  supply  bills  some 
of  the  most  vital  items  needed  in  our  institutional  manage- 
ment. 

Apart  from  the  lack  of  appropriations  for  modern  heating 
and  lighting  plants  in  many  of  the  State  buildings  we  are  also 


114    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


handicapped  in  many  sections  of  the  State  by  the  uneconom- 
ical layout  of  the  several  buildings.  In  several  institutions 
these  buildings  are  not  only  scattered  all  over  the  grounds, 
but  the  structures  themselves  have  no  co-relation  for  econ- 
omy of  administration.  They  have  been  put  up  helter-skelter, 
some  on  architectural  lines  that  lose  almost  50  per  cent,  of 
normal  housing  space,  that  have  their  kitchens,  or  laundries  or 
power  houses  in  the  wrong  place  and  of  wasteful  construction. 
This,  of  course,  comes  from  not  having  any  settled  State 
policy  in  questions  involving  the  expenditure  of  many  millions 
in  each  of  the  years  to  come.  This  lack  of  business  purpose 
explains  some  of  the  cost  of  heat  and  light  in  several  State 
asylums  where  the  power  plants  are  modern.  But  even  in 
these  institutions  there  is  no  efficiency  methods  in  force  to 
save  coal  combustion,  to  regulate  the  feeding  of  the  fuel,  to 
properly  stoke  the  furnaces  and  to  separate  the  ashes  from 
serviceable  fuel. 

A  special  consulting  engineer,  who  has  done  much  work 
for  the  City  and  State,  went  to  the  Hudson  River  Hospital 
for  the  author  of  this  book  and  there  carefully  estimated  the 
loss  in  fuel  and  attendant  labor  at  32  per  cent,  a  year.  Neglect 
to  provide  the  engineers  and  firemen  with  the  latest  fuel- 
saving  inventions,  and  failure  to  concentrate  the  heating  plant, 
forced  the  employment  of  labor  and  caused  the  continuous 
wastage  of  coal.  For  much  of  this,  of  course,  the  Legislature 
is  responsible,  as  time  and  again  it  has  failed  to  respond  to 
legitimate  demands,  but  the  basic  trouble  is  that  we  have  not 
in  Albany  a  department,  either  with  authority  or  proper 
organization,  to  dig  down  deep  into  this  neglect  and  ineffic- 
iency and  to  bring  to  us  steadily  an  increasingly  effective 
administration. 

How  absurd  it  is  to  have  the  State  Department  of  Charities 
spending  millions  each  year,  having  a  tremendously  growing 
work  upon  their  hands,  made  up  of  active  business  men  or 
hard-pushed  professional  men,  serving  the  State  without  com- 
pensation, and  doing  most  of  their  work  when  they  meet  once 
a  month,  with  a  paid  and  faithful  secretary  to  keep  his  finger 
upon  the  pulse  of  the  several  institutions.  He  hears  from  the 
boards  of  managers,  they  from  the  several  superintendents  and 


STATE  HOSPITAL  INEFFICIENCY 


115 


stewards,  and  between  them  all  they  make  up  the  estimates 
that  are  called  for  every  year.  There  is  not  team-work  between 
the  institutions,  although  all  are  under  one  head.  Letchworth 
village  doesn't  know  or  care  what  Albion  may  want,  nor  do 
the  managers  of  the  Rome  Custodial  Asylum  bother  the  man- 
agers of  Central  Islip.  A  board  of  control  in  Albany  made  up 
of  one  commissioner  for  the  prisons,  one  for  the  curative  and 
one  for  the  charitable  institutions,  with  the  State  Architect 
and  a  staff  of  engineers  in  his  office  would  soon  bring  fairly 
good  results.  All  the  mechanical  plants  would  soon  be  on  the 
same  business  basis.  There  would  be  an  orderly  plan  of 
building — one  standard  for  a  nurses'  home;  another  for  the 
dairy;  another  for  the  administration  buildings;  another  for 
the  cottages;  but  all  done  on  uniform  lines  calling  for  the 
greatest  efficiency  and  economy  with  all  proper  comforts. 

There  is  no  central  authority  to  pass  upon  the  most  needful 
repairs  or  new  physical  requirements;  no  one  with  any 
authority  to  put  efficiency  reform  into  general  use  and  enforce 
it  by  the  discipline  of  suspension  or  removal — no  one  thing 
that  would  be  looked  for  in  any  business  house  that  expects 
to  keep  out  of  bankruptcy. 

The  Sfate  Hospital  Commission  can  make  contracts  for 
the  big  standard  supplies  of  the  insane  asylums,  such  as 
4,000,000  pounds  of  beef  a  year,  or  so  many  barrels  of  flour, 
or  so  many  tons  of  coal,  but  there  its  authority  practically 
stops  despite  its  high-salaried  payroll.  It  can't  control  the 
use  of  the  meat  or  the  flour  or  the  fuel.  There  the  Board  of 
Managers  step  in  and  moves  the  State  Comptroller  and  every- 
body else  off  the  earth.  Most  of  them  are  nice  men  and  women, 
sometimes  traveling  in  Europe,  sometimes  in  the  South  or 
West,  interested  in  the  social  climbing  of  the  day  and  some- 
times unable  to  get  a  quorum  to  hear  the  reports  of  the 
hospital  employees.  After  them  come  the  superintendent, 
vjho  is  the  real  czar  of  the  institution,  with  the  steward  as 
his  chief  of  staff.  After  them  comes  the  medical  staff,  a  cloud 
of  farmers,  carpenters,  painters,  engineers,  firemen  and  so  on, 
each  going  about  his  work  his  own  way.  Two  competent 
engineers  from  the  State  Architect's  staff  could  visit  all  these 
institutions  once  a  month,  conserve  the  outgo  and  watch  the 


116    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


upkeep.  A  Deputy  State  Architect  with  these  men,  aside 
from  any  suggestions  he  would  make  of  value  from  time  to 
time  to  the  repair  staff,  would,  with  the  engineers,  be  able  to 
keep  the  central  authority  amply  informed  as  to  institutional 
requirements  relating  to  the  extension  or  serious  repairs  of 
buildings.  We  should  not  then  have  the  spectacle,  as  we  have 
now,  of  useless  structures  or  faulty  structures  in  one  place  and 
an  entire  lack  of  necessary  things  in  another.  A  properly 
framed  department  of  control  in  Albany  would  be  able  to 
direct  all  institutional  reform  and  fairly  well  control  all  expen- 
ditures. When  we  see  the  steadily  mounting  costs  per  capita 
from  year  to  year,  despite  industries  which  supply  everything 
from  soap  to  brass-ware,  and  farms  which  raise  much  of  the 
garden  and  field  produce,  we  can  assume,  with  the  facts 
steadily  with  us,  that  no  great  subject  in  the  State  calls  more 
vitally  for  reform  in  its  financial  aspects. 

The  author  is  not  here  going  into  the  social  and  curative 
reform  so  essential,  as  it  is  no  part  of  this  book;  it  is  a  story 
that,  in  respect  of  some  institutions,  really  shames  the  State; 
but,  after  all,  a  reorganization  that  will  bring  efficiency  and 
economy  is  bound  to  wipe  out  other  abuses,  or  lack  of  pro- 
gress, in  those  institutions  which  spend  the  public  money  but 
do  no  atom  of  good  for  the  poor  waifs  within  their  walls. 


COSTS  FOR  IXSANE  PILE  UP 


n: 


HOW  STATE  HOSPITAL  EXPENSES  DOUBLE. 

Chart  showing  how  population  and  costs  grow  in  the  State 
Hospitals  for  the  Insane. 


IHCREASE  Or 
TWt  INSANE 

IN  STATl 
HOSPITAL!* 
J  ^00  TO  1915 

31 

P£R  CEKT 


Appropriations  State  Hospitals 

In  1900  $4,761,067.58 

In  1915   8,295,042.58 

Increase  of  Insane.  .  .  .51  per  cent. 
Increase  in  Cost ....  74.22  per  cent. 


mCROASE  IN 
STATE  Pon)UAT\OH 

34.5 


AUEMS  »N  &TATE 
H0*sP1TALS»  FOR, 

2.8 

pfR,  ctnT  of 
ALL-  AU\£N  COST 

$  2.,aoo,ooo 


118    WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


STATE  HOSPITALS. 

New  York  has  more  than  $30,000,000  invested  in  its  State 
Asylums  for  the  Insane.  It  has  so  much  land  for  these  so-called 
curative  institutions  that  there  is  about  a  quarter  of  an  acre  of 
ground  for  each  of  the  33,000  patients.  Aside  from  the  money 
invested  in  land  and  buildings  and  plants  the  State  has,  in 
ten  years,  appropriated  nothing  short  of  $70,000,000  for  sal- 
aries, food  supplies  and  other  upkeep.  The  appropriation  for 
the  coming  year  is  $2,500,000  more  than  in  1906.  No  depart- 
ment of  the  State  Government  should  appeal  more  to  the 
scrutiny  of  the  taxpayer,  and  no  department  is  in  greater  need 
of  complete  reorganization.  There  are  13  of  these  State 
Asylums,  overcrowded  to  be  sure,  and  many  of  them  sadly 
lacking  in  repairs  or  in  need  of  new  construction.  These  in- 
stitutions are  in  the  first  part  managed  by  the  State  Hospital 
Commission,  a  costly  organization  of  high-salaried  gentle- 
men in  Albany,  who  really  have  little  or  no  authority  over 
the  local  Boards  of  Managers.  The  managers  in  turn  select 
a  superintendent  and  a  steward  who  jointly  are  supposed  to 
manage  their  respective  institutions. 

For  years  the  payrolls  have  been  steadily  padded  until  it 
is  well  within  the  facts  to  say  that  25  per  cent,  of  the  labor  is 
useless  and  that  much  more  of  the  labor  is  not  handled  in  a 
way  to  be  productive  of  real  service  to  the  State.  The  asylums 
are  really  big  boarding  houses,  because  the  curative  proposi- 
tion for  the  insane  is  about  the  last  thing  that  runs  across  the 
minds  of  the  gentlemen  who  run  these  big  institutions.  From 
50  to  70  per  cent,  of  the  inmates,  in  some  asylums  as  high  as 
75  per  cent.,  can  do  some  work  and  in  many  cases  do  their 
work  so  well  that  they  pay  their  way.  That  follows  wholly, 
however,  with  the  type  of  man  who  is  boss  of  the  institution. 
A  steward  such  as  the  State  has  in  the  Utica  Hospital  or  in 
Gowanda  does  a  lot  of  good  every  way,  both  in  getting  work 
out  of  the  patients  and  in  keeping  expenses  down  to  a  point 
where  the  State  is  really  getting  something  for  its  money, 
despite  a  payroll  not  called  for  by  any  business  standards. 
These  stewards  really  do  the  work  of  superintendents  and  had 
they  one  or  two  good  men  to  help  them  would  show  much 


STATE  HOSPITALS 


119 


better  results,  especially  in  the  farm  work.  In  the  Utica 
Asylum  the  steward  has  a  printing  shop  in  which  all  the  work 
for  the  State  Hospitals  is  done  and  a  plant  in  which  all  the 
coffee  for  the  13  asylums  is  roasted  and  ground.  Many  more 
of  the  patients  are  kept  busy  in  the  knitting  shops  and  in 
making  brooms  and  brushes. 

There  are  farmers  with  good  salaries,  with  assistants  and 
plenty  of  labor,  but  yet  they  get  poor  results  from  splendid 
soil.  This  will  continue  to  be  the  case  until  this  branch  of 
the  State's  institutions  is  put  in  the  direct  control  of  the 
State  Department  of  Agriculture,  and  taken  from  the  ever- 
growing negligence  of  the  Boards  of  Managers  and  Superin- 
tendents, both  in  the  charitable  as  well  as  the  curative  insti- 
tutions. The  mere  fact  that  the  Utica  State  Hospital  raised 
all  its  own  vegetables,  milk,  fresh  pork,  garden  products  and 
nearly  all  its  own  potatoes  last  year,  even  with  very  little 
profit  to  show,  is  proof  of  what  can  be  done  under  efficient 
direction.  Each  head  farmer  in  each  institution  now  does 
pretty  much  as  he  pleases.  The  superintendent  as  a  rule 
knows  nothing  about  the  work  and  there  is  no  central  author- 
ity to  promote  the  output  of  the  garden  and  field.  All  the 
paid  farm  employees  in  the  more  than  20,000  acres  of  pro- 
ductive acrea,  as  well  as  the  purchase  of  manure,  machinery 
and  other  supplies,  should  be  managed  as  I  have  said  from  a 
bureau  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture.  The  State's  farm 
investment  alone  is  nearly  $3,000,000  and  surely  it  is  worth 
having  some  central  authority  that  will  force  scientific  culti- 
vation of  the  land,  especially  when  there  is  a  surplus  of  prac- 
tically pauper  labor. 

When  the  Manhattan  State  Hospital  in  its  splendidly  man- 
aged farm  plot  of  less  than  70  cultivated  acres  can  show  earn- 
ings of  more  than  $220  to  the  acre  and  another  State  institution 
as  at  Batavia  shows  a  loss,  the  need  for  organization  stands 
out.  When  one  institution  can  produce  its  pork  almost  wholly 
on  its  kitchen  garbage  and  a  still  bigger  institution  has  to 
purchase  60  per  cent,  of  its  feed  for  hogs,  it  is  easy  to  see  why 
per  capita  costs  differ  so  much  in  the  several  institutions.  The 
value  per  capita  of  pork  produced  from  kitchen  garbage  in 
one  asylum  last  year  was  $2.42,  in  another  37  cents  per  capita, 


120    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


in  another  $2.51,  in  another  86  cents.  In  the  Middletown  State 
Hospital  the  value  of  the  kitchen  waste  was  $2,248.42,  enough 
to  produce  all  the  pork  and  not  a  dollar  was  spent  for  feed  in 
the  piggery.  In  other  institutions  the  food  cost  for  pigs  ran 
from  25  to  65  per  cent.  This  is  only  one  item  in  many  that 
go  to  make  up  the  varying  expenditures  of  the  State's  big 
institutions.  It  shows  the  value  of  efficiency,  and  how  if  it 
can  be  provided  in  one  place  it  can  in  another.  It  shows  the 
necessity  of  a  central  bureau  to  check  up  waste  and  stop  the 
present  plan  of  having  each  big  institution  travel  at  its  own 
gait  free  from  the  control  of  any  supervising  authority. 

In  one  State  hospital  the  cost  of  farm  expenses  is  more 
than  8  per  cent,  of  all  expenditures.  In  another  it  is  only  2 
per  cent.  In  several  hospitals  farm  administration  is  less  than 
three  per  cent.,  and  in  others  it  runs  up  to  seven  of  the  total 
cost.  In  one  institution  all  the  garden  products  and  field  crops 
are  produced,  while  in  another  with  twice  as  much  acreage  and 
labor  the  State's  money  goes  outside  to  purchase  supplies  of 
potatoes  and  other  vegetables.  In  the  Eastern  New  York  Re- 
formatory the  kitchen  waste  utilized  is  21  cents  per  year  per 
patient.  In  Middletown  it  is  93  cents,  in  Utica,  $1.11.  In 
Long  Island  State  Hospital  32  cents,  in  Gowanda  66  cents,  in 
St.  Lawrence  State  Hospital  $2.31  per  capita.  These  figures 
serve  to  illustrate  the  difference  in  systems  and  will  do  to  bear 
in  mind  as  we  go  along  and  analyze  the  many  queer  things  we 
come  across  in  the  costly  management  of  our  State  insti- 
tutions. 

Here  we  have  the  Bedford  Reformatory  for  women  pro- 
ducing farm  products  at  the  rate  of  $65.31  to  the  acre;  Great 
Meadow  Prison  $15.20  to  the  acre,  Binghamton  State  Hospi- 
tal $39.85  to  the  acre,  and  Manhattan  State  Hospital  $220.00. 
These  figures  are  not  compiled  by  the  author,  but  taken  from 
official  reports  not  as  yet  printed.  A  study  of  the  farm  sta- 
tistics from  the  other  institutions,  which,  if  related,  would 
be  only  piling  up  the  record  here,  all  show  one  institution  to 
be  a  bit  worse  or  a  bit  better  than  another  as  for  instance: 


Thomas  Indian  School,  per  acre 
St.  Lawrence  Hospital,  per  acre 


$58.71 
55-70 


STATE  HOSPITALS 


121 


Central  Islip  Hospital,  per  acre.. 
Kings  Park  Hospital,  per  acre... 
Hudson  River  Hospital,  per  acre 


80.01 


20.32 
31.30 


In  this  last  named  hospital  the  per  capita  cost  of  maintain- 
ing the  farm  last  year  was  almost  as  much  as  the  per  capita 
value  of  the  crops.  It  may  be  said,  and  justly,  of  the  Kings 
Park  Hospital,  for  instance,  that  it  is  unfair  to  take  all  the 
acreage  and  divide  against  it  the  farm  revenues,  inasmuch 
as  many  acres  of  this  valuable  property  lies  fallow,  some  of 
it  salt  meadow.  This  is  very  true,  but  why  for  years  past  has 
the  Board  of  Managers  and  why  has  superintendent  let  all 
this  easily  productive  property  go  idle.  The  meadow  land 
north  of  the  creek  could  be  wholly  reclaimed  with  the  labor, 
of  the  patients  plus  the  superintendence  of  a  few  men  who 
know  their  business,  and  that  reclaimed  land  with  the  idle 
promontory  which  noses  its  way  into  Long  Island  Sound 
would  make  the  finest  chicken  ranch  on  one  side  and  duck 
ranch  on  the  other  anywhere  along  the  coast.  The  Kings 
Park  Hospital  purchased  last  year  64,377  dozen  of  eggs,  at 
a  cost  of  ^19,411.76.  With  live  management,  beginning  a  few 
years  ago,  the  Kings  Park  Hospital  not  only  could  have  raised 
its  own  eggs  from  its  many  acres  of  idle  and  undeveloped 
ground,  but  could  also  have  supplied  in  greater  part  its 
neighbor  at  Central  Islip,  which  is  short  of  acreage,  and  which 
last  year  purchased  more  than  80,000  dozen  eggs,  to  the  value 
of  $20,725.99. 

It  would  be  no  hard  labor  for  the  patients  to  attend  to 
poultry  raising — on  the  contrary,  as  State  Hospital  physicians 
say,  there  is  no  industry  that  seems  to  do  the  mildly  insane 
more  good.  It  has  effected  many  cures,  especially  among 
women,  and,  as  has  been  shown  in  a  few  of  the  well-managed 
.  hospitals  the  surplus  summer  eggs  can  be  well  cared  for  in 
cold  storage.  Ten  per  cent,  of  the  State  institutions  get  all 
their  eggs  on  the  farm  and  what  they  can  do  can  be  done 
everywhere  except  in  those  State  homes  such  as  the  Long 
Island  State  Hospital,  where  there  is  not  the  acreage. 


122    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


ECONOMY  VERSUS  EXTRAVAGANCE. 

To  realize  this  whole  miserable  business  of  waste  and 
general  mismanagement  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  study  the 
most  broad  contrast  possible  between  two  types  of  administra- 
tion, let  us  take  the  State  Industrial  and  Agricultural  School 
in  Monroe  County,  New  York,  and  the  State  Industrial  Farm 
in  Wisconsin.  They  are  both  for  male  misdemeanants,  except 
that  the  one  in  New  York  State  is  for  boys  i6  and  under 
while  the  one  in  Indiana  is  for  boys  up  to  i8. 

No  reader  of  this  volume  will  want  to  know  what's  the 
matter  with  New  York  State  after  reading  the  ofhcial  records 
respecting  these  two  similar  institutions.  The  story  of  how 
and  where  our  money  goes  is  told  in  startling  figures  and  in 
glaring  proof,  of  efficiency  in  the  one  place  and  lack  of  it  in 
the  other. 

The  New  York  Industrial  farm  for  young  male  misde- 
meanants has  1,432  2-3  acres. 

The  Wisconsin  Farm  for  young  misdemeanants  has  nearly 
as  many  acres. 

So  far  they  are  nearly  alike,  but  in  no  other  respect  do 
they  run  together.  The  rest  of  this  chapter  will  read  to  the 
taxpayer  more  like  a  dream  than  the  statement  of  a  business 
proposition  in  State  government.  The  average  daily  inmate 
population  of  the  New  York  Industry  Farm  is  729  and  the 
number  of  employees  is  178  in  the  appropriation  bill  just 
signed  by  Governor  Whitman.  The  inmate  population  last 
year  was  721,  daily  average,  and  the  employees  177. 

That  is,  in  a  colony  of  boys  not  at  all  vicious,  with  ages 
running  from  9  years  to  16,  some  of  them  not  even  mildly 
criminal,  but  committed  as  vagrants  after  abandonment  by 
parents,  there  is  one  employee  to  every  four  inmates  and  a 
fraction.  The  salaries  of  the  employees,  not  counting  free 
rent,  meals,  light,  heat,  laundry  or  any  other  perquisite,  is 
$122,552,  or  $167.84  per  inmate  per  year.  There  is  also  pro- 
vided in  the  Appropriation  Bill  the  sum  of  $101,928  for  food, 
laundry,  farm  and  garden,  livery,  fuel  and  light,  industrial 
material,  etc.,  making  a  total  of  $224,480,  which  is  $307.92  a 
year  for  the  cost  of  each  boy  inmate,  or  $5.92  per  week. 


ECONOMY  VERSUS  EXTRAVAGANCE 


123 


But  that  isn't  the  end  by  any  means.  There  is  the  product 
of  the  farm  to  be  added,  all  of  which  is  consumed  by  the 
inmates.    Here  is  what  was  produced  last  year: 

State  Industrial  &  Agricultural  School,  Industry,  N.  Y. 


Acreage:  Institution  farm  1432  2-3 

Garden  products:  Produced  (value)    $4,543.15 

Milk:  Produced,  474,497  qts.  (value)    20,166.12 

Butter:  Produced,  14,2761^  lbs.  (value)  ....  3,997.42 

Pork,  fresh:  Produced,  11,758  lbs.  (value    1,410.96 

Pork,  ham:  Produced,  3,334  lbs.  (value)    400.08 

Bacon:  Produced,  1,069  lbs.  (value)    128.28 

Potatoes:  Produced,  7,550  bu,  (value)    4,530.00 

Field  crops:  Produced,  (value)    19,881.88 

Fruit  products:  Produced,  (value)    1,929.57 

Poultry:  Dressed,  6,393  lbs.   (value)    1,046.64 

Meats,  Beef:  Produced,  8,164  lbs.   (value)    816.40 

Meats,  Veal:  Produced,  9,887  lbs.    (value)    1,483.05 

Meats,  Mutton:  Produced,  452  lbs.  (value)    49.36 


Total    $62,009.59 


These  are  the  figures  from  the  superintendent  of  the  farm 
school  and  are  the  values  with  the  cost  of  paid  labor  deducted. 
Now  we  take  this  as  the  average,  which  it  is,  as  it  compares 
with  the  previous  year,  and  so  we  have  added  to  the  State  ap- 
propriation of  $224,480,  farm  crops  to  the  value  of  $62,009.59,  all 
consumed  l^y  the  inmates,  and  get  a  total  of  $286,489.59,  which 
is  $392.99  per  inmate  per  year,  or  $7.55  per  week.  This  is 
keeping  the  cost  just  about  where  it  ought  to  be,  too,  from 
the  viewpoint  of  the  management,  as  I  find  by  the  official 
records  for  1915  in  Albany  sent  to  the  Legislature  on  March 
27th  of  this  year,  1916,  that  the  ''weekly  per  capita  cost  of 
support,  including  the  value  of  home  and  farm  products  con- 
sumed, was  $7.42 ;  excluding  this  value,  $5.60."  This  quota- 
tion is  from  the  Legislative  report.   So  we  have  the  following: 

Per  Inmate. 


Last  year,  direct  money  cost   $5.60 

Value  of  farm  food    1.82 


Total  weekly  cost    $7.42 

This  year  direct  money  cost   $5.92 

Value  of  tarm  food    1.63 


Total    $7.55 


124    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


The  reader  may  want  to  know  a  little  more  about  this 
Industrial  and  Farm  School  where,  on  the  1,400  and  odd  acres, 
it  costs  $7.55  a  week  per  head  to  support  more  than  700  boys 
whose  average  age  is  13  and  whose  term  of  stay  is  limited  to 
a  year.  There  are  about  170  buildings  big  and  small,  ranging 
from  the  disciplinary  house  to  the  cow  barns.  There  is  the 
cottage  plan  for  the  boys  in  groups  of  20  and  30,  with  the 
consequent  waste  in  labor  and  in  time.  A  boy  of  10  com- 
mitted is  released  when  he  is  11,  and  a  boy  of  14  goes  out 
when  he  is  15.  The  age  limit  is  16,  when  the  oldest  is  finally 
cast  upon  an  ungracious  world.  These  little  vagrants,  most 
of  them  guilty  of  nothing  except  of  having  bad  parents,  get  no 
hope  in  life  at  Industy.  The  atmosphere  there  is  just  a  bit 
short  of  penal,  and  the  human  side  just  as  warm  as  that 
between  two  losers  in  a  poker  game  after  the  winners  have 
gone  home. 

Five  or  six  baseball  grounds,  an  athletic  field,  a  simple 
course  in  junior  English,  a  bit  of  religious  instruction,  and 
stated  hours  of  work  on  the  farm,  for  those  old  and  strong 
enough,  might  do  something  for  them  in  their  short  year,  with 
a  simple  concert  now  and  then  and  a  wholesome  moving 
picture  show  that  would  teach  some  little  truths  to  the  juve- 
nile mind.    But  what  does  happen?    They  are  packed  away 
in  colonies,  about  20  farm  colonies  and  half  as  many  so-called 
industial  colonies.    One  set  of  the  boys  is  in  the  chicken 
colony,  another  with  the  garden  truck,  another  in  a  so-called 
tailor  shop;  another  set  helping  the  carpenters  or  other 
mechanics,  and  nobody  in  the  lot  getting  one  useful  gleam  of 
life  into  his  mind.   Fancy  children  of  nine  and  ten  gathered  in 
industrial  colonies,  allegedly  learning  with  their  weak  backs 
how  to  use  a  sewing  machine  or  handle  carpenter's  tools ;  how 
to  wash  clothes  in  a  laundry,  and  how  to  shoe  a  farm  horse. 
There  are  guards  to  watch  them,  and  matrons,  instructors  and 
what  not.   Can  all  this  stuff  be  conceived  for  boys  who,  in  the 
first  place,  are  too  young  even  to  begin  industrial  training  and 
who,  in  the  second  place,  remain  only  a  year  unless  returned 
for  breaking  parole.   The  number  so  returned  doesn't  average 
eight  per  cent. 


ECONOMY  VERSUS  EXTRAVAGANCE  125 


Each  cottage  colony — there  are  30  of  them — has  its  two 
and  one-half  to  three  hours  of  school  in  which  the  boys  are 
graded,  with  only  one  teacher  per  day,  so  that  if  there  be 
three  grades  among  the  20  pupils,  each  grade  will  have  an 
hour  a  day.  The  boys  work  half  a  day  on  the  farm,  or  in  the 
so-called  industrial  shops.  If  they  worked  the  other  half  in 
a  common  school  properly  graded,  the  teachers  would  be  able 
to  do  something  of  small  value  at  any  rate.  Now,  with  this 
worthless  sham  upon  the  taxpayers  as  well  as  upon  the  chil- 
dren, a  glance  at  some  of  the  appropriations  made  for  the 
coming  year  will  be  entertaining. 


Superintendent    $4,000 

Parole  agent,  2  at  $1,200  2,400 
Parole  officer,  3  at  $1,200.  3,600 

Organist,  2  at  $336   672 

Stenographer,  3  at  $660  . .  1,980 

Telephone  operator    420 

Coachman,  2  at  $480   960 

Chaplain,  2  at  $1,200   2,400 

Rabbi,  visiting    600 

Head  cook   480 

Cook    360 

Steward    1,500 

Clerk    .    720 

Clerk,  2  it  $600    1,200 

Junior  clerk    360 

Storekeeper    900 

Storekeeper    720 

Storekeeper    840 

Inspector    1,200 

Guards,  4  at  $660    2,640 

Guards,  24  at  $600   14,400 

Matron,  supervising    1,200 

Matron,  disciplinary    480 

Matron's   assistant,  35  at 

$360    12,600 

Supervisors,  25  at  $720..  18,000 

Supervisor,  disciplinary  . .  1,000 

Dentist    600 

Hospital  matron    600 

Chief  nurse    480 

Nurse,  contagious    600 

Optical  surgean,  once  a  wk.  480 

Resident  physician    2,000 

Waitress    240 

Cook    360 


Cooks,  2  at  $360    720 

Butcher    720 

Chief  engineer    1,500 

Assistant  engineers,  3  at 

$900    2,700 

Carpenter    600 

Supervisor,  colony  farms  1,5,00 

Farmer    600 

Farmer    540 

Superintendent  of  schools  1,200 

Teacher,  drawing    900 

Teacher,  music    900 

Teachers,    general,    15  at 

$900    13,500 

Teacher,  general    840 

Teacher,  general    780 

Waitresses,  3  at  $240   720 

Head  cook    480 

Cook   360 

Baking  instructor    720 

Placksmithing  instructor..  900 
Carpentry  instructors,  2  at 

$900    1,800 

Creamery  instructor    720 

Electrical  construction  in- 
structor   900 

Laundering  instructor  . . .  720 

Machinery  instructor  ....  900 

Mpsonry  instructor    900 

Milling  instructor    900 

Painting  instructor    900 

Printing  instructor    900 

Tailoring  instructors,  2  at 

$900    1,800 

Band  instructor   900 


So  it  will  be  noted  that  for  these  young  waifs,  many  of 
them,  as  shown  by  examination,  to  be  feeble-minded,  there 


126    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


are  28  guards,  with  an  inspector,  two  matrons  and  35  assist- 
ant matrons,  one  disciplinary  supervisor  and  25  general  super- 
visors, five  parole  officers,  19  general  teachers  and  14  special 
instructors.  The  band  instructor,  of  course,  couldn't  oganize 
a  band  even  if  he  had  the  musical  instruments,  as  the  stay  of 
the  boys  is  too  short;  but  he  hasn't  got  a  musical  outfit.  The 
two  coachmen  are  necessary  to  drive  the  superintendents  and 
other  officers  around  to  the  various  colonies.  To  all  the 
salaries  above,  the  gentle  reader  will  add  the  free  rent  of  nice 
cottages,  real  cream  in  the  morning,  the  very  best  the  farm 
affords  otherwise,  and  special  food  that  comes  in  from  outside. 

Let  us  forget  the  mental  and  moral  achievements,  if  any, 
which  may  come  to  these  boys  in  the  dreary  and  forlorn  home 
known  as  Industry,  in  Monroe  County,  and  simply  take  the 
money  cost,  not  counting  the  cash  put  in  buildings,  machinery 
or  farm,  either  in  the  beginning  or  the  end,  or  between,  and 
we  have  the  outstanding  fact  that  EXCLUSIVE  OF  HABI- 
TATION, it  costs  $7.55  a  week  per  capita  to  take  care  of  730 
boys,  average  age  13,  in  New  York's  greatest  institutional 
enterprise  for  the  under  juveniles.  This  is  a  complete  confes- 
sion of  failure  by  the  State,  whose  officials  are  trustees  not  only 
for  the  taxpayers  but  for  the  ever-rising  moral  influences  of 
our  communities  not  represented  as  much  by  wealth  as  by 
character. 

And  let  it  be  kept  in  mind,  too,  that  these  boys  charged 
up  with  maintenance  costs  of  $7.55  a  week,  worked  a  bit  on 
the  farm  and  helped  in  producing  something;  that  they  saved 
a  bit  of  labor  in  carrying  a  plank  or  a  saw  for  the  carpenter, 
or  a  pail  for  the  man  who  milked  the  cow,  or  a  bit  of  harness 
for  the  horse  that  hauled  the  plow.  They  took  soiled  linen 
to  the  laundry  and  bent  their  little  backs  in  carrying  swill 
to  the  pigs.  So  if  they  weren't  taught  anything  that  made  the 
horizon  of  their  minds  go  across  the  night  sky  to  the  morrow, 
they  at  least  did  what  the  great  State  asked  them  to  do,  even 
if  the  net  cost  came  to  $7.55. 

May  we  not  wonder  how  a  Governor  of  a  great  State  can 
face  a  people  and  fail  to  confess  that  $7.55  a  week  per  year  is 
too  much  to  pay  for  the  keep  of  a  boy  averaging  13  years 
when  there  are  more  than  700  boys  in  one  lot?    But  what  is 


ECONOMY  VERSUS  EXTRAVAGANCE 


127 


of  more  meaning  is  not  the  money  loss  alone  but  the  entire 
failure  of  government  to  do  anything  for  the  real  betterment 
of  the  child. 

The  institution  known  as  "The  State  Agricultural  and  In- 
dustrial School  for  Boys"  was  established  70  years  ago,  orig- 
inally as  the  "Western  Home  of  Refuge  for  Juvenile  Delin- 
quents/' It  is  useless  to  go  into  its  past,  but  let  us  call  its 
present  usefulness  as  dating  from  1906,  which  will  be  ten 
complete  fiscal  years.  In  that  period,  aside  from  the  cost  of 
buildings,  plant  and  other  special  improvements,  it  has  used  of 
the  State's  money  more  than  $2,000,000,  and  hasn't  produced 
one  useful  graduate  for  any  community. 

But,  in  the  meantime  spending  more  than  65  per  cent,  for 
salaries  of  one  kind  and  another,  and  a  fraction  less  than  23 
per  cent,  for  food  and  clothing  of  the  inmates,  the  rest  of  the 
100  per  cent,  going  for  fuel,  light,  medicine,  etc.,  this  institu- 
tion— the  greatest  in  the  State  for  juveniles — hasn't  left  even 
a  fly-speck  of  morality  or  thought  to  plant  its  name  in  the 
minds  of  people  who  are  on  the  front  porch  and  not  on  the 
back  steps  of  civilization.  The  little  waifs  who  go  into  Indus- 
try, thrown  in  against  their  will  and  thrown  out  against  their 
will,  untaught  about  the  whirling  civilization  of  the  world 
and  what  it  all  means,  mentally  dumb  as  they  may  be  on  the 
average,  would  all  the  same  have  to  wonder  with  eyes  wide 
open  what  New  York's  great  government  had  done  for  them 
in  a  year  at  $7.55  per  week  to  the  taxpayers.  Much  more 
might  these  children  wonder  after  a  year  of  servitude,  why 
they  should  be  sent  back  to  the  uncertain  mother  or  the  dis- 
solute father.  Yet  the  fact  is  here  standing  out  as  big  as  the 
Himalayan  Mountains  that  these  so-called  wards  of  the  State 
come  and  go  at  the  rate  of  90  per  cent,  a  year,  and  that  the 
only  real  factors  who  stay  are  the  agile-minded  gentlemen 
tied  down  to  a  nice  State  job,  fine  cottages  and  the  good 
things,  outside  of  salaries,  that  can  be  wrenched  from  an 
elastic  payroll  and  fruitful  farm  soil. 

The  day  is  coming  surely  when  we  shall  demand  and  get 
more  for  our  money  taken  in  tax-raising;  and  the  day  is  cer- 
tainly coming  when  we  shall  make  our  correctional,  curative 
and  charitable  institutions,  a  non-stopping  place  for  political 


12S    WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


parasites,  big  and  small,  whose  ideas  of  civilization  haven't 
grown  beyond  the  glow-worm  stage. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that  this  institution  is  the  costliest;  not 
by  any  means,  but  it  is  the  most  worthless  by  all  odds,  and 
serves  plainly  to  show  the  waste  of  money,  the  development 
of  institutional  extravagance  and  the  non-development  of  any 
good  line  of  action  in  our  correctional  institutions.  This  farm 
is  many  years  old,  not  a  new  venture,  and  with  any  rational 
business  system  would  be  run  at  no  greater  cost  than  $3.00 
per  boy  per  week,  there  being  no  rental  charges;  and  yet  we 
have  it  at  $7.55  a  week,  exclusive  of  cost  of  rooms,  with  no 
good  done  for  boy  or  man. 

Out  in  Indiana  there  is  the  Industrial  Farm  for  Misde- 
meanants, bigger  in  area  than  our  farm  in  New  York,  the  only 
difference  being  that  the  prisoners  range  from  16  up.  In 
New  York's  boy  institution  there  is  one  employee  to  every 
four  inmates ;  in  Indiana  one  to  every  20.  There  are  600 
inmates.  Not  every  employee  either  is  a  salaried  agent  of  the 
State.  There  are  more  than  100  inmates  with  bad  records 
and  old  in  small  crimes.  These  are  handled  not  by  well-paid, 
well-fed  and  well-housed  guards,  but  by  honor  convicts  from 
the  State  prison  whose  minimum  terms  are  running  out  and 
who  see  that  the  Industrial  Farm  inmates  with  old  records 
do  a  full  day's  work  on  the  farm  or  in  the  shops.  For  the 
younger  prisoners  there  are  a  few  civilian  guards.  The  pur- 
pose is  not  to  do  anything  there  but  improve  the  physical  and, 
therefore,  the  mental  side  of  the  inmates.  They  have  farm 
work  and  farm  food,  repair  shop  labor  and  roadbuilding, 
broom-making  and  chair-caning,  and  there  is  no  padded  pay- 
roll ;  no  fine  houses,  but  good,  plain  dormitory  buildings,  with 
the  cleanliness  that  goes  with  efficiency.  The  shower  bath  is 
as  much  of  an  institution  there  as  the  fresh  food  which  is 
served. 

The  Wisconsin  Industrial  School  for  Boys  is  precisely  on 
the  same  general  plan  as  that  of  New  York's  Industrial  School. 
It  is  on  the  same  cottage  plan,  the  boys  being  grouped  accord- 
ing to  age,  and  those  who  are  from  16  to  18  taught  useful 
vocations.  Those  who  are  younger  also  begin  in  the  lighter 
work  of  farms  and  trades,  and  all  are  grouped  in  12  cottages 


ECONOMY  VERSUS  EXTRAVAGANCE  129 


spreading  over  many  acres  of  ground.  There,  however,  all 
similarity  ends.  The  400  boys  have  a  public  school  just  as 
v^e  have  in  the  city.  There  they  are  regularly  taught  manual 
training  and  music  and  then  they  do  their  share  of  work 
either  on  the  farm  or  in  the  shops.  They  get  out  a  monthly 
paper  called  "The  Big  Brother",  are  taught  respect  for  indus- 
trial labor,  and  learn  from  their  instructors  there  must  be 
patience  with  the  dull  and  stupid,  as  well  as  forbearance  with 
the  seemingly  vicious  and  obstinate.  They  have  a  common 
dining  room,  instead  of  eating  in  the  several  cottages,  as  in 
the  New  York  School,  and  a  common  assembly  room.  How 
well  this  institution  does  its  work  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  a 
boy  doesn't  get  his  parole  until  a  place  is  found  for  him  suited 
to  his  abilities,  and  the  Superintendent  last  December  had  on 
deposit  $15,000,  the  surplus  earnings  of  those  on  parole,  to  be 
delivered  to  them  when  they  come  of  age. 

It  costs  $7.50  a  week  to  keep  a  boy  averaging  13  years  in 
New  York's  Industrial  Farm  and  School,  and  it  costs  $3.88  a 
week  in  Wisconsin  to  keep  a  boy  averaging  15  years. 

These  boys  who  cost  the  State  of  Wisconsin  less  than  $4 
a  week  have  fine  playgrounds — denied  their  younger  brethren 
in  New  Ycfrk — and  a  well-equipped  entertainment  hall  to  take 
away  the  dull  edges  of  the  night.  Fewer  than  12  per  cent,  of 
the  boys  on  parole  fail  to  make  good.  The  charts  herewith 
published  show  the  difference  in  the  financial  administration 
of  the  two  institutions  and  tell  clearly  why  costs  pile  up  in 
New  York. 


130    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


WISCONSIN  SHOWS  THE  RIGHT  WAY. 

Chart  cost  of  Wisconsin  Industrial  School  and  Farm  for 
Boyss  inmates,  398;  cost  per  week  per  inmate,  including 
value  of  farm  supplies,  $3.88. 


HOW  NEW  YORK  WASTES  ITS  MONEY  131 


HOW  NEW  YORK  WASTES  ITS  MONEY. 

Chart  cost  of  the  New  York  State  Agricultural  and  In- 
dustrial School  for  Boys,  Year  1915,  as  sent  to  Legislature, 
March  27,  1916,  not  including  farm  food  supplies,  but  all  ex- 
penditures from  appropriations  for  maintenance.  Cost  per 
week  with  farm  food  supplies,  $7.55  per  inmate. 


132    WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 

Going  out  West  for  a  comparison  relating  to  the  cost  of 
boys  committed  to  an  industrial  and  farm  prison  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  bit  aside  from  the  making  of  an  accurate  estimate, 
so  we  shall  go  across  to  New  Jersey  there  to  find  a  fair  com- 
parison with  New  York's  Industrial  Colony.  The  average 
age  of  the  boys  in  each  is  the  same.  The  number  of  inmates 
differs  less  than  one-fifth.  The  cottage  system  is  the  same. 
The  farm  in  New  Jersey  is  smaller  than  the  one  in  New  York 
but  in  every  other  respect  the  conditions  are  similar.  And  here 
is  what  we  have  between  the  cost  of  the  State  Home  for  Boys 


in  New  Jersey  and  the  one  in  New  York; 

New  Jersey,  cost  per  capita  per  week  including  all 

farm  earnings    $3.80 

New  Jersey,  cost  per  capita  per  week  exclusive  of 

all  farm  suppUes  (direct  money  cost)    3.57 

New  York,  cost  per  capita  per  week  including  all  farm 

earnings   7.55 

New  York,  cost  per  capita  per  week  exclusive  of  all 

farm  supplies  (direct  money  cost)    5.92 


Here  we  have  two  institutions  similar  in  every  respect,  one 
in  New  York  and  one  in  New  Jersey,  where  there  is  a  differ- 
ence of  more  than  two  dollars  a  week  between  the  living  cost 
of  each  boy.  I  have  said  similar  in  every  respect,  meaning 
that  the  boys  are  of  about  the  same  age;  that  they  are  sim- 
ilarly committed  and  that  they  live  in  cottage  settlements, 
learning  a  little  of  agriculture  and  a  bit  about  trades.  But 
they  are  dissimilar,  too.  In  the  New  Jersey  institution  at 
Jamesburg,  penal  shadows  don't  hang  constantly  about  the 
boys.  In  New  Jersey  they  have  entertainments,  a  weekly 
moving  picture  show,  a  good  band,  outdoor  games,  swimming 
and  general  physical  exercises.  The  boys  of  Industry,  New 
York,  seldom  hear  of  these  things  and  only  know  that  they 
have  guards  to  watch  them  at  every  tick  of  the  clock.  So  let 
us  take  for  final  analysis  three  similar  industrial  and  farm 


institutions  for  boys: 

New  York,  per  inmate  per  week   $7.55 

Wisconsin,  per  inmate  per  week   3,88 

New  Jersey,  per  inmate  per  week   3^0 


ECONOMY  VERSUS  EXTRAVAGAXCE 


133 


The  author  of  this  book  need  not  argue  upon  the  statement 
that  it  is  larceny  of  the  State's  money  to  run  a  boy's  industrial 
and  farm  institution,  average  age  of  inmates  thirteen,  at  a 
cost  of  $7.55  a  week  for  each  boy,  exclusive  of  his  room  rent; 
when  it  is  recalled  that  each  boy  does  a  little  work  on  the 
farm,  in  the  laundry,  the  tailor  shop  or  in  housekeeping,  the 
wonder  grows  that  the  Governor  of  New  York  has  not  gone 
into  the  marrow  bone  of  this  question.  Many  a  reader  of  this 
volume  would  like  to  have  a  well  developed  1,400  acre  insti- 
tution with  all  rooms  free  to  board  more  than  700  boys  a  week 

$7-55  s  head. 

It  has  become  the  fashion  of  late  to  attack  the  wholesome 
and  mind-broadening  work  of  Roman  Catholic  institutions, 
which  care  for  the  young  and  the  old.  It  it  said  of  them  tTiat 
they  haven't  that  ''go-ahead"  character  in  the  things  of 
to-day  that  can  be  found  in  other  institutions.  A  gentleman 
of  variegated  character,  and  of  business  renown  stretching 
from  New  York  City  to  the  Northwest-Pacific  Coast,  John 
A.  Kingsbury,  Charity  Commissioner  for  Mayor  Mitchel,  is 
one  of  those  who  would  put  his  moral  ideas  against  the  trained 
knowledge  of  clerical  and  lay  Catholic  men  as  to  what  can 
be  done  in  the  lines  of  progress.  Of  course,  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  hour  not  every  honest  man  sees  the  truth  just  as  it  is, 
nor  does  everyone  take  off  his  hat,  so  to  speak,  in  honor  of 
the  lofty  work  of  splendid  Catholic  men  and  women  in  the 
cloistered  atmosphere  of  the  Church,  who  pass  in  and  out  of 
life  as  an  incident  of  their  faith,  but  do  their  duty  well.  These 
men  and  women  of  the  church  leave  a  pathway  which  cannot 
be  blotted  from  the  growing  things  of  to-day  or  hereafter. 

But,  taking  the  most  non-efficient  members  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  administrative  organizations  in  the  State,  those  who 
are  willing  but  untrained,  would  they  not  indeed  feel  them- 
-  selves  lost  in  this  life  if  they  could  not  do  more  for  the  moral 
and  physical  welfare  of  boys  averaging  13  years  than  is  done 
by  the  State  at  $7.55  per  capita  per  week,  in  the  rolling  farm 
lands  of  New  York's  industrial  farm?  What  a  fine  thing  it 
would  be  for  the  State,  as  well  as  for  all  of  us  who  think  as 
individuals,  if  the  several  Protestant  denominations,  the  Jews 
and  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  were  united,  to  see  what 


134    WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


could  be  done  toward  making  these  bits  of  boys  forward  citi- 
zens by  regulative  civil  and  religious  teaching.  How  much 
cheaper  financially  such  a  community  of  purpose  would  be 
for  the  State,  with  political  costs  wiped  out,  and  how  much 
better  for  the  mind  of  the  boy?  These  remarks,  purely  per- 
sonal by  the  author,  have  no  place,  perhaps,  in  our  present 
civic  growth;  that  is,  no  settled  place  at  the  moment,  but  the 
time  cannot  be  far  off  when  we  shall  have  some  general  com- 
munion of  interest  between  Church  and  State  on  a  line  of 
non-divisional  thought  for  the  common  welfare  of  those  who 
need  the  helping  arm  of  government — of  which  one  branch  is 
the  taxpayer. 

Bourke  Cockran  was  partly  right  in  St.  John's  Hospital, 
Brooklyn,  on  Sunday,  May  21st  of  this  year,  1916,  when  he 
put  forward  the  proposition  that:  "The  State  cannot  dispense 
charity."  To  be  effective,  he  held,  there  must  be  grace  and 
love  behind  it.  He  may  have  been  a  bit  astray  from  the  facts 
when  he  said  that  the  State  inmate  of  a  Home  of  Refuge  or  an 
Industrial  Farm  was  only  one  degree  removed  from  the  blight 
of  penal  servitude,  but  he  was  wholly  within  the  facts  as  we 
find  them  when  he  asserted  that  State  control,  as  it  is  to-day, 
takes  no  blot  from  the  mind  of  the  weak  and  adds  no  moral 
force  to  the  wards  of  the  State,  young  or  old.  Julius  Cham- 
bers, \n  the  Brooklyn  "Eagle,"  whose  breadth  of  view  on  pub- 
lic questions  and  whose  splendid  learning  are  as  well  known 
in  London  and  San  Francisco  as  in  New  York,  commenting 
on  Mr.  Cockran's  speech,  said  those  who  had  seen  some  of 
New  York's  institutions  "Would  realize  what  splendid  words 
he  had  spoken  and  how  true  they  are." 


MONEY  FLOWING  AWAY 


135 


WASTE  IN  GIRL'S  HOME. 

Now  let  us  pass  from  the  Boys'  Farm  of  Industry,  where 
even  remote  civilization  dwells  only  in  spots,  and  cross  the 
sex  line  to  the  New  York  Training  School  for  Girls,  in 
Hudson.  This  institution  is  in  every  way  on  even  terms 
with  that  of  the  Boys'  Farm  in  Industry,  except  that  the  girls 
are  committed  between  the  ages  of  12  to  16,  whereas  the 
boys  of  Industry  are  between  9  and  16.  The  only  other  material 
difference  is  in  acreage,  which  is  much  less  in  Hudson.  The 
State  of  New  York,  with  its  voltaile  conscience  in  charity, 
puts  together  here  the  destitute  child  of  12,  the  innocent  but 
unguardianed  child  of  13,  and  the  delinquent  or  incorrigible 
girl  of  15 — the  good  and  the  bad,  the  feeble-minded  and  the 
mentally  alert  but  misfortunate.  This  broadly  human  govern- 
ment of  ours  then  puts  in  a  correctional  institution,  having 
penal  powers,  girls  evil  and  good,  the  latter  victims  of  some- 
thing they  had  no  part  in,  and  inmates  of  a  State's  generosity 
the  brightest  part  of  which  is  the  sleep  that  wipes  out  the 
unkind  atmosphere  of  the  waking  day. 

It  cost^last  year  $7.59  a  week  to  maintain  each  girl  in  this 
classic  institution.  This  outlay,  too,  was  with  an  average 
daily  inmate  population  of  321.  This  was  almost  a  dead  heat, 
financially,  with  the  Boys*  Farm  in  industry,  and  proves  at 
least  that  so  far  as  taxpayers'  cost  goes  there  is  no  sex  dis- 
tinction in  the  charitable  institutions  of  the  State. 

When  the  reader  keeps  in  mind  that  there  is  no  habitation 
charge,  that  is  no  room  cost  in  this  $7.59  a  week  per  girl,  and 
no  interest  charged  against  the  original  and  always  present 
outlay  for  the  buildings  and  grounds,  it  may  well  be  a  matter 
of  astonishment  where  the  money  goes.  State  administration 
so  lax  as  to  permit  this  fleecing  of  the  taxpayer  carries  its  own 
-  condemnation,  and  once  more  shows  plainly  the  cause  of  our 
ever-rising  budget. 

So  as  to  take  off  the  mind  of  the  busy  man  or  woman, 
interested  in  this  book,  the  small  figures  of  medical  supplies 
and  the  little  by-products  of  institutional  management  in  the 
Hudson  Home  for  Girls  will  not  be  related  here.  But  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  say  that  the  money  spent  in  1915  for 


136    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


provisions,  meaning  food  of  all  kinds  from  bacoji  to  hominy 
and  beef  to  coffee,  was  $21,760.13,  out  of  a  total  maintenance 
charge  of  $120,174.80.  There  was  $94,000  more  expended  on 
buildings  and  grounds,  but  the  upkeep  of  the  inmates  and 
employees  was  $120,174.80,  with  all  food  totals  at  $21,760.13. 
There  were  95  employees  to  take  care  of  the  321  inmates — 
that  is  about  two  employees  to  every  seven  girls.  The  total 
of  inmates  and  employees  was  415  per  day,  averaged  through 
the  year.  This  made  a  per  capita  cost  of  $65.44  ^  year  for 
provisions,  counting  all  the  men  and  women  on  the  payroll; 
that  is  $1.25  a  week. 

The  difference  between  $1.25  a  week  and  $7.59  a  week  can 
be  found  in  the  employees'  payroll  and  such  incidentals  as 
medicine,  light  and  heat,  general  supplies  and  clothing.  The 
per  capita  cost  for  employees  was  $185.41  for  the  year;  that  is 
$3.56  per  week  per  inmate.   So  we  have; 

Cost  of  food  per  week,  per  capita   $1.25 

Salaries  of  employees  per  week,  per  capita  $3.56 

The  Hudson  Hospital  for  Girls  must  be  a  sunny  place  at 
night,  for  the  cost  in  1915  per  inmate  for  fuel  and  light  was, 
in  the  report  sent  to  the  Legislature  March  27th  of  this  year, 
1916,  $32.50.  The  year  before  it  was  $34.32.  So  we  find  it 
cost  for  food  per  year  $65.44,  light  and  heat  $32.50,  and 
for  employees'  salaries  $185.41  per  inmate.  The  cost  of  cloth- 
ing was  $15.72  last  year  for  each  inmate,  which  would  never 
be  suggested  by  looking  at  them,  but  is  down  in  black  and 
white  in  the  official  figures.  Then,  taking  the  four  biggest 
items,  we  have; 


The  remainder  of  the  outlay  which  makes  each  of  these 
girls,  big  and  little,  cost  $7.59  a  week  is  for  railroad  fares, 
hospital  and  medical  supplies  and  such  fugitive  things  as 
"repairs  to  lawns,  roads  and  grounds." 


Per  Capita. 


Cost  of  food  per  year   

Cost  of  employees  per  year  .  .  . 
Cost  of  heat  and  light  per  year 
Cost  of  clothing  per  year  .... 


$65.44 
185.41 
32.50 
15-72 


NEW  YORK'S  GIRL  WAIFS 


137 


Of  course,  if  the  State  won  anything  for  all  this,  by  lifting 
the  child  toward  hope  and  contentment  in  the  future,  even 
excess  expenditure  could  be  overlooked,  but  the  Hudson 
Training  School  for  Girls  is  the  last  thing  on  earth,  planned 
or  managed,  that  would  reach  the  heart  or  the  mind  of  grow- 
ing youth.  The  officers  and  main  employees  have  their  beau- 
tiful building  looking  out  on  the  dancing  waters  of  the 
Hudson,  from  which  at  times  they  can  watch  some  of  the  most 
dazzling  sunsets  across  the  Catskill  hills  that  the  world  can 
boast  of.  They  have  good  salaries,  roomy  quarters  free  of 
rent,  and  the  best  of  everything  that  comes  from  the  farm. 
The  wards  of  the  State  are  scattered  in  small  cottage  settle- 
ments, isolated  for  hours  as  if  they  had  the  plague,  some  of 
them  treated  in  the  most  severely  correctional  form,  and  not 
one  of  them  made  to  feel  that  life  hereafter  may  have  a  bit 
of  that  sunshine  which  survives  in  memory  from  earlier  days 
of  childhood. 

Anger  certainly  comes  to  the  mind  where  the  weekly  cost 
of  S7.59  is  kept  in  sight  with  a  view  of  what  these  girls  do 
for  themselves.  Each  child  has  her  own  room,  which  she 
must  cav$  for  before  she  takes  up  the  other  duties  of  the  day. 
Som.e  in  every  cottage  are  marked  off  to  help  in  some  of  the 
cooking,  waiting  on  table  and  general  housework.  Their 
happiest  time,  probably,  is  when  they  are  locked  in  their  indi- 
vidual rooms  before  8:30  at  night,  to  be  unlocked  to  so-called 
"liberty"  before  6:00  in  the  morning.  These  waifs  learn  how 
to  scrub  floors,  but  not  to  view  life  as  it  ought  to  be.  They  go 
automatically  to  an  English  teaching  school  in  the  morning, 
to  a  so-called  industrial  training  school  and  chapel  services  in 
the  afternoon,  and  after  their  scant  supper  are  permitted  in  a 
"recreation"  room  for  an  hour  before  going  to  bed.  There 
are  no  games  in  this  room — nothing  that  would  suggest  a  bit 
^  of  happiness — but  simply  the  prim  sitting  around  under  the 
watchful  eyes  of  the  assistant  matrons  assigned  to  the  several 
cottages.  There  are  no  outdoor  or  indoor  amusements,  and 
nothing  whatever  to  promote  the  physical  welfare  of  many 
who  are,  in  part  at  least,  feeble-minded.  It  is  not  the  function 
of  this  book  to  go  into  the  institutional  management  of  our 
charitable  asylums,  only  into  the  waste  and  the  cost;  but  a 


# 


138    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


few  paragraphs  of  criticism  cannot  be  avoided  when  we  see 
the  State's  money  spent  as  it  is  here.  When  we  find  children 
weak  in  body  as  well  as  in  mind,  compelled  to  take  care  of 
their  own  laundry  as  well  as  to  scrub  the  floors,  we  naturally 
wonder  why  our  good-souled  State  doesn't,  out  of  that  $7.59 
a  week,  give  these  children  a  concert,  a  moving  picture  show 
and  some  wholesome  games  to  wear  away  not  only  the  tedium 
of  their  lives,  but  the  penal  shadows  cast  about  them. 

The  woman  superintendent  here  receives  $3,000  a  year 
salary,  rent,  laundry,  food,  carriage  service  and  all  else  free. 
Her  assistant  is  paid  $1,600  with  all  privileges.  The  steward 
has  $1,500  and  the  finest  quarters  in  which  to  live.  The 
marshal  and  parole  agents  gather  in  more  than  $4,600  of  the 
payroll,  not  to  speak  of  other  things.  There  are  47  matrons 
or  assistant  matrons.  That  is  one  to  every  seven  children. 
In  this  wastefully  laid  out  plant  there  are,  exclusive  of 
laborers,  ten  men  to  look  after  heat  and  light,  with  titles  of 
engineer,  assistant  engineers,  electricians  and  firemen.  There 
are  17  general  instructors,  but  only  one  physical  instructor  for 
this  cottage  colony.  As  the  wards  of  the  State  are  increasing 
more  than  twice  as  fast  as  our  general  population,  the  forward- 
looking  taxpayer  must  surely  see  the  urgent  reason  for  sharp 
reorganization  in  asylum  methods  which  make  a  per  capita 
tax  of  $7.59  per  week  for  girls  whose  average  age  is  not  15 
and  who  do  much  of  the  housework  of  the  institution. 

It  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  there  are  not  in  the  service 
men  of  action  and  of  character.  What  they  do  for  the  State's 
good,  however,  is  of  their  own  thinking  and  not  the  part  of 
any  efficiency  plan  coming  from  any  State  authority.  The 
Steward  of  the  Gowanda  Hospital  for  the  Insane  has  been 
able  to  reduce  costs  in  nearly  every  department  in  his  direct 
control,  and  his  methods  generally  applied  through  the  vast 
State  hospital  system  would  save  the  State  half  a  million  a 
year.  The  Steward  in  the  Willard  Hospital  has  proved  his 
patients  can  make  soap  for  all  the  institutions  for  the  insane 
and  make  it  as  good  as  the  best  private  manufacturers.  He 
has  also  shown  he  can  reduce  household  supplies  to  a  per 
capita  cost  most  saving  for  the  taxpayers.  The  Utica  Hos- 
pital Steward  has  put  his  skill  in  developing  several  industries. 


HOW  MONEY  CAN  BE  SAVED 


139 


His  printing  plant,  doing  all  the  work  for  the  asylums,  is 
wholly  his  work. 

If  these  several  activities  could  be  extended  to  all  the  State 
institutions  and  a  steady  growth  produced  by  the  force  of  a 
central  authority,  expenditures  from  the  State  Treasury  would 
be  cut  from  20  to  30  per  cent.,  providing  there  is  standardiza- 
tion of  employees  on  a  non-political  basis.  With  industrial 
progress  thus  fairly  started,  the  development  of  the  farm  ques- 
tion, including  the  production  of  milk,  butter,  cheese  and 
eggs  could  go  safely  on  under  the  guidance  and  control  of  a 
farm  bureau  in  the  Department  of  Agriculture.  Only  by  some 
such  efficiency  plan,  which  will  put  expenditures  by  the  State 
on  the  same  basis  as  the  business  of  the  individual,  can  we 
hope  to  cut  the  per  capita  costs,  now  so  high. 

A  saving  of  one  dollar  a  week  per  inmate  in  the  State 
Asylums  for  the  Insane,  that  saving  to  include  coal,  labor,  pro- 
visions and  decreased  cost,  by  increased  industrial  and  farm 
production,  would  cut  the  budget  in  this  department  of  gov- 
ernment alone  by  $1,700,000  a  year.  It  would  make  a  clear 
saving  of  $625,000  a  year  in  the  State  Charities  Department, 
or  a  total  of  $2,325,000  every  twelve  months  in  these  two 
branches. 

That  it  can  be  done  beyond  all  dispute  is  shown  by  the 
actual  costs  under  certain  stewards  who  have  well-managed 
departments.  In  one  place  there  is  economy,  and  in  another 
plain  waste.  This  amazing  situation  never  can  be  overcome 
by  continuing  boards  of  managers  who  take  only,  at  the  best, 
a  fugitive  interest  in  the  work,  and  a  majority  of  them  resid- 
ing far  away  from  the  hospital  or  asylum  whose  operations 
they  are  supposed  to  superintend.  These  managers  have 
become  obsolete  now  in  the  growth  of  great  State  institu- 
tions. The  central  boards  of  control  which  have  taken  their 
^places  in  all  progressive  states,  have  proved  the  wisdom  of  the 
new  departure  by  reducing  operative  costs,  promoting 
efficiency,  developing  on  State  lines  the  care  of  the  inmates, 
and  gathering  from  one  institution  some  good  idea  which  can 
be  put  in  force  in  all. 


140    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


THE  MODEL  TRIPLE  PRISON, 

Chart  cost  of  the  Massachusetts  State  Farm  for  the  In- 
sane, the  Criminal  and  the  Indigent,  at  Bridgewater;  average 
number  of  inmates,  2,592;  cost  per  week  per  inmate,  $2.58; 
paid  from  appropriations. 


The  institution  at  Bridgewater  is  Massachusett's  famous 
triple  prison,  combining  the  insane,  the  less  hardened  crim- 
inals and  the  almshouse  and  hospital  patients.  There  are  800 
insane.  The  farm  of  1,200  acres  is  the  model  penal  farm  of  the 
world.  New  York  State's  similar  institutions  run  on  the  same 
per  capita  basis  would  save  more  than  $4,000,000  a  year  com- 
pared with  present  expenditures. 


HOW  RELIEF  CAN  COME 


141 


HOW  RELIEF  CAN  COME. 

What  can  be  done  in  Massachusetts  for  instance,  in  the 
way  of  reducing  cost,  by  producing  farm  food  for  the  inmates, 
surely  can  be  done  in  New  York,  which  leads  all  the  Western 
States  in  the  value  per  acre  of  nearly  all  the  great  crops.  The 
Bridgewater  triple  prison  in  Massachusetts,  or  State  Farm  as 
it  is  called,  averages  about  2,500  inmates,  having  1/3  of  this 
number  insane,  the  remaining  persons  convicted  of  crime,  or 
charity  patients.  In  Bridgewater,  it  is  recognized  as  a  first 
principle  that  the  ideal  State  institution  must  raise  enough  of 
farm  and  garden  products  by  penal  or  pauper  labor  to  feed 
the  inmates  and  that  the  surplus  of  vegetables  and  fruit  must 
be  canned  for  winter  use. 

We  can  understand  how  Bridgewater  can  get  along  on 
$2.58  per  week  per  inmate  when  we  know  that  they  raise 
there  as  much  as  350  bushels  of  potatoes  to  the  acre  and  that 
270  bushels  per  acre  is  regarded  as  a  bad  crop.  When  they 
can  average  450  bushels  of  onions  to  the  acre  and  equal 
scientific  land  culture  in  the  production  of  vegetables  and  fruit 
we  understand  how  this  great  institution,  so  ably  managed 
by  Hallis  M.  Blackstone,  has  far  outstripped  in  economy  and 
efficiency  its  rivals  for  reduced  costs  in  New  Jersey,  Pennsyl- 
vania, Wisconsin,  Indiana  and  Colorado  and  its  few  real 
competitors  in  the  Empire  State. 

We  have  in  New  York  broad  farm  grounds  attached  to  the 
institutions,  and  we  have  paid  farmers  with  assistants,  but 
only  in  spots  do  we  get  any  fair  results.  How  vitally  im- 
portant this  is  to  the  taxpayers,  as  well  as  to  the  inmates,  is 
shown  in  the  Rome  Custodial  Asylum,  New  York,  where  the 
per  capita  cost  is  only  $2.88  per  patient  per  week,  by  far  the 
lowest  in  any  of  the  State  hospitals  or  charitable  institutions. 
.The  reason  is  that  in  the  Rome  Custodial  Asylum  last  year, 
made  up  of  feeble-minded  of  both  sexes,  the  farm  and  garden 
products  of  all  sorts,  net  value,  amounted  to  $46.64  per  in- 
mate per  year,  or  82  cents  per  week  for  each  of  the  1,563  in 
custody.  They  produced  from  the  farm  about  250,000  quarts 
of  milk,  all  that  was  required  by  employees  as  well  as  inmates. 
The  result  was  an  expenditure  in  the  total  cash  outlay  of  only^ 


142    WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


16.6  per  cent,  for  provisions  of  all  kinds,  including  coffee, 
sugar,  tea,  etc.  This  Rome  Custodial  Asylum,  if  relieved  of 
its  surplus  employees,  would  come  near  matching  the  famous 
Bridgewater  institution. 

Energetic  work  at  Albany  in  massing  all  the  authority  of 
some  central  body  on  our  farm  system  in  our  thirty  odd  in- 
stitutions, will  bring  down  the  average  per  capita  cost  at  least 
fifty  cents  a  week  ppr  inmate  on  provisions  alone,  which  would 
mean  a  saving  of  more  than  a  million  a  year.   This  is  a  decent 
task  for  the  Governor  to  take  hold  of  with  all  the  energy  he 
disclosed  at  Chicago  in  putting  forward  Mr.  Hughes  for  the 
presidency.    If  he  will  tackle  the  industrial  end  of  the  situa- 
tion at  the  same  time  in  all  the  State  institutions,  he  will  have 
made  his  greatest  mark  as  an  administrator.    The  waste  in 
the  management  of  our  institutional  industries  is  second  only 
to  the  inefficiency  shown  in  farm  output.   In  the  fine  organiza- 
tion in  Bridgewater  prison  nothing  is  overlooked,  and  so  we 
find  that  one  of  the  most  important  economies  is  the  savings 
which  come  from  the  by-products  of  grease,  bone,  rags  and 
other  junk.    It  produced  for  Bridgewater  last  year  about  15,- 
000  pounds  of  hard  soap,  90  tons  of  soft  soap,  nine  tons  of 
fertilizer  for  the  farm  and  about  nine  tons  of  scrap  for  the 
chickens.   This  means  running  a  State  institution  on  business 
principles.   They  did  more  in  the  weave  shop  of  Bridgewater 
in  the  way  of  blankets,  shirtings,  towelings,  suitings,  under 
machinery  disadvantages,  than  New  York  with  better  tools 
was  able  to  do. 

The  Governor  has  his  greatest  field  in  forcing  efficiency  on 
our  40  big  State  institutions  with  more  than  50,000  inmates. 
He  can,  without  much  labor,  put  in  force  the  economy  which 
he  and  the  Republican  Party  promised  our  bedeviled  tax- 
payers. The  people  can  hardly  look  for  relief  to  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  in  New  York  which  to-day  is  still  controlled  by 
the  men  whose  larcenous  methods  under  Dix  proved  them 
unfit  to  be  trusted  in  any  public  enterprise.  These  men  still 
in  control  of  the  party  machinery  have  no  conception  of  State 
Government.  They  believe  the  taxpayers'  money  should  be 
used  as  a  payroll  for  political  hucksters.  They  have  no  thought 
for  the  growing  civilization  of  the  day.    They  know  nothing 


HOW  RELIEF  CAN  COME 


143 


and  they  care  less  about  the  control  of  our  criminals,  our  in- 
sane or  our  feeble-minded.  To  them,  conservation  of  the 
State's  natural  resources  is  a  thing  they  have  no  time  to  study. 
Their  outstanding  viev^  is  to  get  contracts,  cheat  the  State 
and  put  their  servants  in  office.  That  is  the  sum  of  govern- 
ment for  them.  Their  moral  impulses  are  down  the  back 
alleys  of  civilization.  When  they  talk  of  economy  or  of 
progress  in  government,  they  are  simply  for  the  time  covering 
their  own  vices  with  a  veneer  of  language  meant  to  gull  those 
who  follow  the  surface  thought  of  the  day. 

Even  defeat  doesn't  stimulate  them  to  a  bit  of  moral  ac- 
tivity. If  proof  were  necessary  it  is  found  in  their  election  re- 
cently of  Edwin  S.  Harris  to  be  State  Chairman.  At  best 
he  is  a  second-class  office  broker  whose  mind,  at  no  time,  has 
risen  above  thoughts  of  petty  patronage.  He  was  the  selection 
of  Martin  H.  Glynn,  Patrick  E.  McCabe,  of  Albany;  Fitz- 
patrick,  of  Buffalo;  Kelly,  of  Syracuse;  Farley,  of  Broome; 
the  indicted  McLean,  of  Orange;  Pallace,  of  Monroe,  and 
their  allies,  they  still  foolishly  thinking  that  decent  Democrats 
will  follow  a  combination  that  spells  graft  at  the  inlet  and 
the  outlet. 

But  tlSe  fact  that  the  Democratic  organization  is  hope- 
lessly bankrupt  in  morals  is  no  reason  why  the  Governor  of 
New  York  should  let  things  drift  in  a  semi-respectable  way. 
He  cannot  rest  his  non-performance  of  plain  duty  upon  the 
fact  that  he  has  put  in  ofBce  men  of  good  reputation.  He  must 
get  behind  them  and  tear  away  the  red  tape  or  the  inefjBciency. 
This  is  a  comparatively  easy  task  for  a  well-equipped  man  who 
has  the  energy  and  the  courage  displayed  at  times  by  Mr. 
Whitman. 

He  went  into  office  pledged  to  undo  the  work  of  a  corrupt 
State  Government  and  in  his  own  words  to  promote  economy 
and  efficiency.  A  committee  of  his  own  party  in  the  Legis- 
lature reported  that  $2,000,000  a  year  in  salaries  alone  could 
be  saved,  but  nothing  was  done  except  to  pay  this  committee 
$50,000  for  expenses.  If  plus  this  salary  saving  the  Governor 
will  resolutely  go  about  the  efficient  re-organization  of  our 
State  institutions,  which  he  can  do,  he  will  put  under  obliga- 
tions to  him  the  great  mass  of  the  voters  who  at  this  time  can 


144    WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK^ 


see  no  other  agency  of  relief.  It  is  with  Mr.  Whitman  to  say 
whether  we  shall  continue  to  have  a  broken  down  Govern- 
ment or  have  alert  State  officials  spending  our  money  upon 
the  most  approved  business  lines. 


THE  SHAME  OF  THE  STATE  145 


IMPROPER  CARE  OF  INSANE. 

The  overcrowding  in  our  State  Hospitals  for  the  insane 
is  worse  than  in  the  prisons.  It  is  a  shameful  spot  in  New 
York  State  Administration.  The  increase  in  population  last 
year  was  951,  or  nearly  5  per  cent.,  which  is  more  than  twice 
as  fast  as  the  percentage  of  growth  in  the  normal  population 
of  the  State.  Every  Governor,  having  ambition  or  cowardice 
in  the  back  of  his  head,  wants  to  dodge  the  issue  of  increased 
appropriations  and  to  the  point  that  we  have  the  following 
appalling  condition  in  overcrowding: 


Av.  daily 


Census 

pop.  since 

t — Overcrowding — ^ 

Hospital. 

Sept.  30, 1915. 

Oct.  1,  1915. 

No. 

Per  Cent. 

Utica   

1,591 

1,589 

370 

28ro 

Willard 

2,367 

2,424 

440 

21.87o 

3,282 

3,282 

596 

21.57o 

Middletown 

2,019 

2,055 

302 

16.1% 

Buffalo   

2,089 

2,151 

438 

25.7% 

Binghamton 

2,364 

2,391 

299 

14.27o 

St.  Lawrei^ce 

  2,062 

2,106 

356 

20  7o 

1,490 

1,567 

291 

22.7% 

1,181 

1,184 

244 

25% 

J/'Ohansic    ,  .  , 

64 

64 

6 

9.3% 

Kings  Park 

4,250 

4,269 

1,048 

30.9% 

Long  Island 

820 

849 

183 

28.7% 

Manhattan 

4,887 

4,992 

1,355 

37.77o 

Central  Islip  . 

.   ..  4,726 

4,912 

859 

21.4% 

33,192 

33,835 

6,787 

24.7% 

.The  case  is  just  as  bad  in  the  homes  for  the  feeble-minded. 
The  situation  will  have  to  be  met  resolutely  at  no  distant  day; 
but  when  that  time  comes  there  ought  to  be  a  complete  re- 
.  organization  of  methods  and  management,  aimed  at  a  specific 
reduction  of  cost  per  capita,  and  a  growing  care  for  the  com- 
fort and  the  future  physical  improvement  of  those  committed 
to  these  institutions. 


146    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


WHERE  NEW  YORK'S  MONEY  GOES. 


The  three  industrial  and  farm  institutions  in  the  chart 
printed  below  are  identical  in  all  respects,  having  cottage 
colonies,  trade  and  farm  schools.  The  only  difference  is  that 
the  boys  in  New  Jersey  and  in  Wisconsin  get  a  bit  more  for 
the  money. 


State 


ACbt  \5X^  COST 


^3.89 


New  JtasE^^  ^/\t£. 

yPAf.S.  CO^^T  P£^ 


State  HoiAe 

AND  Vti^V)ST«^\A^V» 

AveeAGt  ACiE 

WEEK 


\ 


I 


WASTE  IN  FOOD  SUPPLIES  14T 

NEW  YORK  AS  A  FARMER. 

There  are  few  persons  who  know  that  the  New  Y ork  State 
Government  is  by  all  odds  the  greatest  farmer  in  our  com- 
monwealth, and  the  poorest.  We  have  invested  millions  in 
farm  lands  to  feed  our  more  than  33,000  patients  in  the  State 
Hospitals  and  the  many  thousands  more  in  prison,  correc- 
tional institutions  and  homes  for  the  feeble-minded.  We 
have  poured  out  our  money  lavishly  to  give  our  wards  fresh 
vegetables  and  milk,  eggs,  pork,  bacon  and  other  products 
of  the  farm,  in  the  hope  that  out-door  work  would  build  up 
the  patient,  or  criminal,  and  make  in  part  self-sustaining  those 
maintained  by  the  State. 

Our  farm  system  is  a  joke,  except  in  spots.  There  has 
been  no  effort  by  the  State  to  make  it  otherwise.  Where  it  is 
not  a  joke,  the  result  has  come  from  high  administration  by 
such  a  man  as  Dr.  Mabon,  in  the  Manhattan  State  Hospital, 
and  nearly  similar  work  in  a  few  institutions  which  will 
receive  proper  credit  in  this  volume.  The  lack  of  efficiency 
comes,  of  course,  from  lack  of  system,  and  the  failure  to  pro- 
vide for  responsible  administration. 

The  red  tape  of  the  law  binds  every  effort  to  make  the 
farms  both  useful  and  money  saving.  The  Agricultural 
Department  would  be  glad  to  change  conditions,  but  is  power- 
less to  enforce  its  decrees  or  suggestions.  If  it  finds  no  proper 
farm  care  at  a  State  Asylum,  it  may  protest  to  the  Hospital 
Commission.  These  gentlemen  are  powerless  beyond  making 
suggestions  to  the  Board  of  Managers,  with  which  every 
institution  is  both  cursed  and  endowed.  These  boards  cannot 
be  suspended  or  removed  by  the  State  Hospital  Commission. 
In  law  they  have  the  direct  management  of  the  institutions. 
These  managers  meet  once  a  month.  They  are  usually  people 
.  well  known  in  business  or  society,  but  seldom  manage  any- 
thing. They  may  send  the  suggestions  for  betterment  of 
farm  work  to  the  superintendent  of  the  asylum,  who  may 
transmit  it  to  the  institution's  farmer,  who  may  become  prop- 
erly indignant  that  the  State  Agricultural  Commission  does 
not  mind  its  own  business.    There  the  incident  ends. 


148    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


The  Department  of  Agriculture  may  see  criminal  neglect 
in  the  management  of  prison  farms  or  those  of  correctional 
institutions.  Again  it  has  no  authority  to  help  the  State.  The 
State  Prison  Commission  may  take  the  proposition  up  with 
the  Superintendent  of  Prisons,  and  he  with  the  Warden,  and 
he  with  the  farmer,  but  there  is  no  one  anywhere  in  power 
to  enforce  the  proposition  that  loss  of  labor  and  products  must 
not  continue.  If  the  complaint  be  in  respect  of  the  State  chari- 
table institutions,  the  State  Board  of  Charities  will  pass  it 
along  to  the  Board  of  Managers  who,  when  they  meet,  will 
turn  it  over  to  the  Superintendent,  who  may  have  on  his 
hands  a  so-called  farmer  and  assistants  who  don't  know  much 
more  than  the  difference  between  an  Alderney  bull  and  a 
mountain  goat. 

Naturally  the  thing  to  do  would  be  to  have  the  farm 
products  and  farm  grounds  of  every  State  institution  in  direct 
control  of  a  Bureau  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  the 
only  department  of  State  which  knows  how  to  get  results 
from  the  soil.  This  bureau  would  have  a  head  visiting  farmer 
and  a  deputy,  who  would  save  their  salaries  a  thousand  times 
over,  and  the  Department  of  Agriculture  proper  could  be 
called  upon  at  any  time  for  special  expert  advice  relating  to 
cattle,  hogs  and  poultry.  To-day  New  York,  the  greatest 
farmer  inside  the  State,  is  wasting  its  lands,  non-developing 
its  labor  and  digging  deep  into  the  Treasury  for  food  supplies 
which  could  be  obtained  in  greater  part  by  the  industry  o! 
those  it  supports. 

That  the  Department  of  Agriculture  recognizes  the  gen- 
eral failure  of  our  State  farms  is  greatly  to  its  credit.  It  is 
powerless,  however,  to  do  more  than  make  suggestions.  When 
we  take  in  mind  that  the  total  acreage  is  about  20,000  we  can 
see  readily  how  necessary  it  is  to  have  this  subject  taken  in 
hand  by  men  who  can  enforce  results.  Out  in  Wisconsin  the 
women  inmates  in  the  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane  took  care 
of  the  winter  and  spring  days  last  year  by  putting  up  5.791 
jars  of  jellies,  2,556  quarts  of  pickles  and  21,431  quarts  of 
canned  fruits  from  a  modest  bit  of  garden.  They  made  nearly 
10,000  pieces  in  the  sewing  room,  including  nearly  everything 


NEW  YORK  AS  A  FARMER 


149 


needed  for  personal  wear.  They  worked  part  time  in  the  sew- 
ing room. 

Right  near  home  can  be  seen  what  efficiency  can  do  in  farm 
work  and  in  reducing  per  capita  taxes.  Here  is  the  record  for 
the  New  Jersey  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  in  a  farm  garden 
and  dairy  combining  only  275  acres  and  worked  in  its  largest 
extent  by  its  inmates: 


Raised  from  farm   $34,092.23 

Actual  cost,  including  depreciation  of  plant.,..  23,844.41 


Profit  for  year    $10,247.82 

Raised  from  garden    $10,592.95 

Cost,  including  interest  on  investment  in  build- 
ings, value  of  equipment,  insurance,  etc   8,418.14 


Profit  for  year    2,174.81 

Raised  from  dairy    $32,749.47 

Cost,  including  interest  on  all  investments-,  in- 
surance  and  new   cattle,   etc   26,874.55 


Profit  for  year    5,874.92 


All  profits  from  farm,  garden  and  dairy   $18,642.68 


Here  we  have  milk  enough  to  take  care  of  all  the  inmates 
and  employees  and  farm  products  which  practically  obviated 
all  expenditure  outside.  There  was  a  profit  of  nearly  $70  an 
acre  averaging  farm,  garden  and  dairy  and  it  is  just  this  sort 
of  work  which  finally  will  reduce  the  per  capita  costs  in  New 
York  Institutions.  When  a  trifle  more  than  200  insane  women 
can  do  in  Wisconsin  in  two  years'  running  what  is  shown 
above,  twice  that  number  on  double  the  area  of  ground  ought 
to  be  able  to  do  as  much  at  least  in  any  one  of  New  York's 
institutions.  This  will  not  come,  however,  until  there  is  a 
central  authority  in  the  Agricultural  Department  in  Albany 
having  complete  control  of  the  State's  farms.  When  we  find 
nine  of  these  institutional  farms  run  at  a  net  loss  despite  free 
>  and  plentiful  labor  we  may  well  ask,  "What's  the  matter  with 
New  York?" 


150    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


THE  STATE'S  ASSESSABLE  PROPERTY. 

Property  value  in  New  York  State  on  which  the  Direct 
Tax  in  1915  was  raised.  Read  about  the  fake  realty  assess- 
ments up-State. 


i^xi  YoM^.  Cv-tx 

SHARt    OF  STATt5 


or  -r*^6  frr/xTE 
^  3.096,^11,100 


The  real  estate  exemptions  in  New  York  State  amounted 
last  year  to  $2,377,156,232,  an  increase  in  10  years  of  79  per 
cent. 


MISUSE  OF  OUR  LAWS 


151 


THE  TAX  QUESTION. 

The  most  serious  question  that  could  be  treated  in  this 
book  is  the  system  of  taxation  in  New  York,  the  neglect  of 
the  State  to  enforce  its  tax  statutes  and  the  consequent  failure 
to  collect  the  full  franchise  taxes  from  most  of  the  corporations 
operating  north  of  New  York  City. 

Mere  assertions  are  not  proof  of  evil  conditions.  The 
author  of  this  volume  set  out  to  get  the  proof,  but  after 
investigation  in  two  small  counties  had  cost  in  paid  labor  more 
than  $200,  it  was  seen  that  the  expense  of  obtaining  State- 
wide official  proof  would  be  prohibitive  within  the  limits  of 
this  book.  The  leading  civic  association  of  New  York 
was  offered  an  opportunity  to  co-operate  but  did  not  accept, 
which  is  regrettable,  inasmuch  as  a  complete  uncovering  of 
conditions  up  the  State  would  have  shown,  by  incontestable 
official  records,  that  the  system  of  levying  a  direct  tax  is  open 
larceny  from  the  City's  realty  owners  for  the  benefit  of  cor- 
porations and  other  taxpayers  in  many  sections  of  the  State. 
In  New  York  City  the  assessed  valuation  of  real  property  is, 
on  the  average,  85  per  cent,  of  its  selling  price.  In  some  cases 
it  goes  below  this  and  in  some  above,  but  the  average  is  very 
near  85,  as  has  been  shown  officially  and  otherwise  in  the 
examination  of  m.any  parcels.  Mayor  Gaynor,  coming  into 
office  only  to  find  the  City  at  the  limit  of  its  bonding  capacity, 
jumped  realty  valuation  about  25  per  cent,  to  make  bond  issues 
valid  within  the  10  per  cent,  requirement  of  the  Constitution 
in  respect  of  taxable  values. 

Had  the  rest  of  the  State  done  the  same  thing,  New  York 
City  would  be  at  no  disadvantage  when  a  direct  tax  is  levied 
upon  the  total  assessed  valuation  of  the  cities,  towns  and 
villages  of  the  State.  It  would  pay  only  its  equalized  share. 
But  property  up-state  is  assessed  from  35  to  65  per  cent,  of 
its  value  by  the  local  assessors,  wholly  to  escape  the  heavy 
hand  of  State  taxation  at  the  expense  of  the  big  city.  A  proper 
equalization  would  have  made  New  York  City's  direct  tax  in 
the  last  fiscal  year  not  more  than  $8,500,000,  instead  of  the 
$13,000,000  in  round  figures  which  it  had  to  pay. 


152    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


It  would  be  assumed  that  the  great  realty  interests  of 
New  York  City,  if  not  the  officials,  would  be  interested  in 
stopping  this  manifestly  unjust  assessment  on  already  over- 
burdened taxpayers,  something  which  could  be  done  in  law 
after  proof;  but  while  these  gentlemen  worry  themselves  into 
meetings  of  protest  against  one  thing  or  another  in  the  pass- 
ing hour,  and  hurry  the  Board  of  Estimate,  they  stop  short  of 
doing  the  most  material  thing  they  have  at  hand  for  the 
protection  of  the  City. 

In  one  county  examined  for  the  writer  of  this  book,  town 
houses,  business  plants  and  farms  with  buildings  thereon  were 
found  mortgaged  for  more  than  their  assessed  value,  and  the 
selling  price  was,  in  every  case,  almost  twice  the  value  of  the 
mortgage.  In  one  city  on  the  Hudson  River,  which  has  a  tax 
rate  of  more  than  per  cent,  on  the  assessed  valuation, 
mortgages  were  found  far  in  excess  of  the  taxable  value.  One 
farm  assessed  for  $1,800  was  mortgaged  for  $5,400,  and  was 
offered  to  the  author  of  this  book  for  $12,000.  One  commer- 
cial plant,  assessed  for  $56,000,  was  mortgaged  for  $92,000. 
The  cost  of  examinations  made  it  impossible  to  bring  this 
phase  of  New  York's  government  to  any  point  of  real  value 
for  the  purposes  of  this  volume.  But  as  the  State  tax  com- 
missioners have  neglected  their  plain  duty  in  equalizing  valua- 
tions, or  attempting  to  do  so,  it  would  well  repay  New  York 
City  to  take  up  this  vital  subject  and  fight  it  to  a  finish. 

We  are  surely  in  for  the  day  of  the  direct  tax,  and  it 
means  more  than  a  few  dollars  to  the  realty  owner  and  the 
rent  payer  of  New  York.  It  is  an  over  tax  on  all  business  in 
the  big  City,  and  an  under  tax  on  all  business  outside  the 
City,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Albany,  where  examination 
shows  the  rate  to  be  close  to  8o  per  cent. 

Of  course,  the  people  of  the  City  of  Newburgh  don't  care 
if  their  tax  rate  is  $33.00  on  the  thousand  if  the  actual  rate 
is  only  35  per  cent,  of  value.  This  means  that  on  a  valuation 
of  70  they  would  be  paying  only  16.50  on  the  thousand,  a 
reasonable  rate  for  any  city.  When  the  State  comes  along 
with  a  direct  tax  it  collects  on  the  local  values,  which  are 
much  less  than  they  ought  to  be,  and  New  York  City  pays 
the  difference. 


THE  TAX  QUESTION 


153 


But  of  much  more  moment  to  the  State  Treasury,  and  to 
its  biggest  city,  is  the  fact  that  the  tax  on  the  franchise  valua- 
tions is  the  same  as  the  tax  in  each  locality  upon  realty,  and 
so  the  corporations  cheerfully  pay  the  State  upon  the  under- 
valuation of  the  local  assessors.  A  corporation  in  New^  York 
City  pays  more  in  proportion  than  one  up-State  in  the  same 
kind  of  business,  although  its  overhead  charges  are  greatly  in 
excess.  The  Nev^  York  City  corporation  is  taxed  by  the  State 
on  the  high  valuation  existing  and  the  up-State  corporation 
on  the  low  valuation  that  local  and  friendly  assessors  put  upon 
them. 

If  these  gentlemen  representing  the  State  who  have  spent 
many  thousands  of  dollars  through  legislative  committees  in 
studying  new  sources  of  State  revenue,  and  if  these  gentle- 
men representing  New  York  City  who  spent  a  lot  of  money 
last  year  for  a  similar  local  aim,  would  go  at  the  root  of  this 
question,  they  would  get  results  well  worth  the  ambition  of 
the  ablest  citizen. 

The  way  local  assessors  in  the  several  towns  of  this  State 
do  business  ought  to  be  torn  wide  apart  by  a  fearless  State 
government — that  is,  the  Legislature  and  the  Governor,  with 
his  Tax  Commissioners ;  but  no  real  relief  will  come  until  New 
York  City's  officials,  backed  by  the  big  civic  organizations, 
take  up  this  great  subject  with  intent  to  make  it  right  for 
all  time ;  that  is,  as  nearly  right  as  constantly  changing  human 
agencies  can  make  it. 

The  corporate  property  which  escapes  taxation,  in  part,  in 
this  State,  is,  of  course,  big,  but  it  was  impossible  for  the 
writer  of  this  book  to  check  it  to  the  point  of  usefulness.  It 
can  be  done,  however,  with  accuracy,  by  existing  bureaus  of 
government,  and  would  entirely  change  the  present  relation 
of  New  York  City  to  the  remainder  of  this  State  in  the 
percentage  of  property  open  to  assessment  for  a  direct  State 
tax. 

Just  how  bad  the  inequalities  are  in  the  assessment  of  real 
property  through  New  York  State,  for  the  purpose  of  levying 
a  direct  tax  need  not  be  estimated  by  any  words  of  mine,  but 
the  official  records  show  facts  which  ought  to  stir  New  York 
City's  leaders  to  positive  action. 


154    WHATS  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


Less  than  two  years  ago  the  City  of  Salamanca  increased 
its  real  estate  assessment  115  per  cent.,  exclusive  of  special 
franchises.  In  the  same  year  the  town  of  Orwell  in  Owego 
County  increased  its  real  estate  assessment,  exclusive  of 
special  franchies,  188  per  cent.  Orleans  County  increased  its 
valuation  of  real  property  in  1914,  46  per  cent.;  Warren 
County  40  and  Wayne  County  19  per  cent.  This  was  a  com- 
plete confession  by  these  tax  authorities  that  in  the  preceding 
year,  as  in  other  years,  they  had  failed  to  pay  their  fair  share 
of  the  direct  State  tax.  Rochester,  which  was  danger- 
ously near  the  limit  of  its  bonding  capacity,  also 
lifted  the  value  of  its  realty,  reducing,  of  course, 
the  rate  of  taxation  but  not  its  volume.  Before 
Salamanca  raised  the  assessed  value  of  its  real  property,  its 
rate  of  taxation  was  $50  on  the  thousand  or  five  per  cent., 
which  would  have  been  confiscation,  of  course,  if  the  rate  had 
any  proper  relation  to  actual  values. 

When  we  find  the  towns  of  Sullivan  County  with  a  tax 
rate  averaging  6  per  cent,  on  the  dollar,  Ulster  County  wich 
tax  rate  of  more  than  4  cents  on  the  dollar  in  many  of  its  im- 
portant towns,  and  Orange  County  with  such  places  as  New- 
burg,  Cornwall  and  Monroe,  far  above  $30  on  the  thousand, 
we  know  that  the  tax  rate  is  high  while  the  valuation  is  low. 
With  the  law  explicitly  clear  as  to  their  authority  and  their 
duties  it  is  more  than  strange  that  the  State  Tax  Commission- 
ers do  not  enforce  a  full  valuation  of  property.  In  1913  they 
were  provided  with  an  extra  staff  of  examiners  for  this  very 
purpose,  but  nothing  of  material  value  has  been  done. 

We  know,  of  course,  that  New  York  City  has  the  costliest 
Government  in  the  State,  partly  because  of  her  enormous  new 
water  system;  partly  because  of  her  present  subway  obliga- 
tions; partly  because  of  her  care  of  aliens  dumped  upon  the 
City;  partly  because  of  her  extended  social  service  in  sup- 
plementary education,  and  partly  because  she  is  still  rebuild- 
ing her  piers,  roads  and  sewers,  and  yet  her  tax  rate  is  far 
behind  all  other  cities  of  the  State,  based  upon  the  assessed 
valuation  of  property.  When  we  take  into  account  that  New 
York  City's  debt  service  alone  is  nearly  $60,000,000  a  year, 
interest  payment  upon  past  obligations,  we  wonder  at  the 


THE  TAX  QUESTION  155 

following  tax  figures  on  each  $i,ooo  of  valuation  in  which  the 
fractional  part  of  the  rate  is  omitted: 

New  York  Tax  Rate  (average  in  Boroughs)  $i8 

Buffalo  Tax  Rate    30 

Rochester  Tax  Rate    23 

Syracuse  Tax  Rate    23 

Utica  Tax  Rate   30 

Albany  Tax  Rate    24 

Schenectady  Tax  Rate    31 

Amsterdam  Tax  Rate    32 

Troy  Tax  Rate    28 

Auburn  Tax  Rate   33 

Jamestown  Tax  Rate   34 

Kingston  Tax  Rate    25 

Elmira  Tax  Rate   27 

Newburgh  Tax  Rate    35 


In  the  State  tax  last  year  New  York  City  paid  $2.77  for 
each  member  of  its  population,  including  aliens.  The  rest  of 
the  Stat^  of  New  York  paid  $1.37  per  capita.  In  the  last  12 
years  in  which  a  direct  tax  was  paid,  New  York  City's  pro- 
portion was  $58,765,082,  as  against  $29,337,153  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  State.  In  1898,  New  York  City  paid  60  per 
cent  of  the  tax,  and  in  1915,  68  per  cent. 

There  is  no  question  whatever  that  hereafter  we  must 
have  a  continuous  direct  tax.  We  have  gone  to  the  limit  of 
our  indirect  taxes.  Appropriations  to  repair  or  extend  our 
State  institutions — all  shamefully  overcrowded — were  post- 
poned under  Mr.  Glynn  and  omitted  in  large  part  by  Mr. 
Whitman.  The  obligations,  steadily  mounting,  caused  by  the 
cottage  system  for  the  feebleminded  and  for  the  venial  in 
^  crime,  mean  high  rates  of  maintenance.  The  cost  of  govern- 
ment goes  up  by  millions.  The  direct  tax  will  rise  in  pro- 
portion. 

It  is  the  plain  duty  of  New  York  City's  Government  and 
of  its  civic  organizations  to  enforce  a  proper  equalization  of 
real  estate  valuation  in  the  cities,  towns  and  villages  of  the 
State,  so  that  the  City  of  New  York  shall  not  continue  to  pay 


156    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


an  undue  proportion  of  State  taxes.  The  only  way  to  wipe 
out  the  direct  tax  is  to  find  new  revenues  by  taxation;  the 
only  way  to  reduce  the  State  tax  is  to  enforce  economy  and 
efficiency  in  the  State  Government.  That  New  York  City  is 
entitled  to  some  consideration  from  State  officials  we  may 
well  note  in  the  mere  item  that  in  the  collections  from  the 
transfer  tax  alone  to  the  State  Treasury  the  big  City  con- 
tributed in  the  last  ten  years  the  enormous  total  of  $93,000,000 
as  against  $32,000,000  for  the  rest  of  the  State.  The  City  con- 
tributed last  year  in  excise  tax  more  than  $5,500,000  and  as 
much  in  the  inheritance  tax.  No  real  help  in  the  fight  for  fair 
play  need  be  looked  for  up  State.  A  dollar  looks  as  big  to 
Democrats  above  the  Bronx  as  it  does  to  Republicans.  Any- 
thing they  can  save  as  the  cost  of  New  York,  they  will.  To 
win  an  even  deal  in  State  taxation  the  local  and  the  legisla- 
tive representatives  of  New  York  City  must  act  as  a  unit,  and 
when  they  do  they  can  achieve  what  they  set  out  to  do. 


CANAL  DAMAGES  TO  COME 


157 


THE  STATE'S  FINANCIAL  MUDDLE. 

The  wholly  lax  condition  of  Government  in  New  York 
with  its  ill  effect  upon  the  State  Treasury  may  be  broadly 
shown  in  the  enormous  canal  damage  suits  and  the  excess  of 
money  in  the  Sinking  Funds.  In  one  canal  sinking  fund 
alone  the  excess  is  $16,000,000.  In  all  the  Canal  and  High- 
way sinking  funds  the  excess  is  more  than  $30,000,000.  This 
money  has  been  improperly  taken  from  the  people  in  the  last 
ten  years  either  by  direct  tax  or  by  appropriation  from  the 
Treasury,  and  only  in  the  last  eighteen  months  has  any  in- 
telligent effort  been  made  to  stop  the  inflow  of  money  to  these 
over-swollen  sinking  funds. 

The  administration  of  Gov.  Hughes  did  nothing  toward 
correcting  the  fiscal  error  in  the  State  Constitution  relating  to 
Highway  Sinking  funds  and  did  nothing  to  correct  by  legisla- 
tion or  otherwise  the  excess  in  the  canal  sinking  funds.  Dix 
and  his  advisors  ignored  it  even  when  compelled  to  levy  a 
direct  State  tax.  Sulzer  attempted  to  untangle  the  situation 
but  went  out  of  office  before  he  could  do  anything.  Glynn 
left  it  to  the  constitutional  convention  whose  work  was  upset 
at  the  polls,  but  the  Whitman  administration,  that  is  the 
Governor,  the  Attorney  General  and  the  Controller,  agreed 
upon  a  constitutional  amendment  which  when  finally  adopted 
will  save  at  least  $4,000,000  a  year  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
Thus  it  has  taken  at  least  eight  years  and  must,  under  the 
constitution,  take  at  least  another  year  to  settle  a  question  of 
plain  finance  which  should  have  been  taken  care  of  in  1909  or 
at  the  latest  in  1910  by  an  amendment  to  the  constitution. 

When  Gov.  Hughes,  in  1909  and  1910,  signed  bills  and 
made  them  into  law  for  the  issues  of  Highway  bonds  and 
Canal  bonds  and  providing  for  the  sinking  funds,  both  the 
^  Governor  and  the  Legislature  followed  in  part  the  direction 
of  the  Constitution,  just  as  did  Dix  after  Hughes,  and  Higgins 
before  him  in  Canal  bond  issues.  But  Mr.  Hughes  seeing  that 
an  error  had  been  made,  in  computing  the  amount  necessary 
from  year  to  year  to  retire  the  bonds  at  maturity,  should  have 
brought  the  submission  of  a  Constitutional  Amendment  to 
the  people.    Had  he  done  so  there  would  have  been  no  direct 


158    WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  NEW  YORK? 


tax  in  any  year  since  that  period  except  last  year,  and  that 
tax  would  have  been  several  millions  less.  Gov.  Hughes  went 
out  of  office  leaving  the  taxpayers  in  a  sorry  muddle,  since 
which  time  they  have  contributed  at  least  $18,000,000  that 
was  wholly  unnecessary.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  Legis- 
lature could  have  acted  within  the  law  by  directing  the  Comp- 
troller to  treat  the  surplus  in  the  Sinking  Funds  as  revenue  of 
the  State,  to  be  applied  from  year  to  year  toward  the  amorti- 
zation of  the  bond  issues.  The  law  could  have  been  passed 
swiftly  correcting  the  former  Legislatures,  Governors  and 
Comptrollers  respecting  the  Canal  Sinking  funds,  if  not  the 
Highway  funds,  which  latter  seem  to  be  governed  by  the 
Constitution.  The  Court  of  Appeals  could  have  passed 
promptly  upon  the  validity  of  this  act,  but  neither  in  the 
Legislature  or  by  Constitutional  amendment  was  any  relief 
attempted  until  the  present  time. 

Of  course,  this  is  not  a  new  story  but  it  serves  first  to 
throw  light  upon  our  methods  of  State  finance  and  second 
to  bring  sharply  in  this  volume  to  the  attention  of  the  tax- 
payers the  grievous  situation  we  have  in  the  claims  running 
near  to  $50,000,000  for  Canal  damages.  The  State  has  been 
left  in  this  sorry  financial  muddle  by  the  failure  of  every  ad- 
ministration since  the  time  of  Hughes  to  provide  through  the 
Court  of  Claims  for  money  damages  caused  by  the  taking  of 
property  for  the  Canals.  No  money  was  set  aside  from  year 
to  year  to  meet  the  final  judgments  and  it  was  not  until  Gov. 
Whitman  reorganized  the  Court  of  Claims  on  a  business  and 
non-political  basis  that  any  relief  was  attempted. 

It  will  probably  be  news  to  some  of  the  heaviest  taxpayers 
to  learn  that  there  are  claims  against  the  State  for  about  $55,- 
000,000  and  that  nearly  $45,000,000  of  these  claims  involve  the 
taking  by  the  State  of  land  and  of  water  power.  There  is 
also  the  annual  accruing  interest  of  six  per  cent,  from  the  time 
the  State  entered  upon  the  property.  This  six  per  cent, 
cumulative  interest  will  have  to  be  paid  on  whatever  portion 
of  the  $45,000,000  of  claims  may  be  allowed.  Of  course,  under 
a  business  administration  of  the  State  these  cases  would  have 
been  determined  rapidly  and  appropriations  would  have  been 
made  annually  to  take  up  the  State's  indebtedness  from  time 


THE  STATE'S  FIXAXCIAL  MUDDLE  159 


to  time.  There  would  have  been  money  in  the  State  Treasury 
to  meet  the  claims.  Mr.  Glynn,  not  at  all  in  ignorance  of  the 
situation,  completely  ignored  it  in  his  pursuit  of  a  low  budget 
and  a  false  programme  of  economy.  Gov.  Whitman  has  gone 
about  resolutely  to  clean  up  the  situation,  assisted  by  Mr. 
Egbert  E.  Woodbury,  the  most  efficient  Attorney  General  the 
State  has  had  in  many  years,  and  as  a  result,  several  Judges 
of  the  Court  of  Claims  are  giving  their  undivided  time  to  try- 
ing these  damage  suits.  In  many  cases  the  actual  homes  of 
people  were  taken  by  the  State,  and  while  years  have  lapsed 
these  people  have  been  left  without  homes,  money  or  even  the 
interest  upon  the  capital  employed.  This  is  a  fair  illustration 
of  the  financial  methods  employed  by  Governors  and  Comp- 
trollers who  seek  to  delude  the  people  by  low  budgets  and 
alleged  decreasing  costs  of  administration. 

Assuming  that  only  20  per  cent,  of  the  $45,000,000,  or  JtJg,- 
000,000  in  all,  is  finally  allowed,  there  will  be  six  per  cent,  in- 
terest charges  alone  piling  up  from  past  years  of  $540,000  a 
year.  All  this  will  have  to  be  met  by  the  taxpayers  in  the 
next  few  years,  all  of  which  furnishes  an  additional  reason 
why  the:!(pe  should  be  without  delay  a  comprehensive  system 
of  reorganization  in  the  great  departments  which  are  spend- 
ing the  public  money,  with  a  steadily  rising  cost  of  adminis- 
tration. We  have  reached  pretty  nearly  the  limit  of  our  in- 
direct taxes.  To  meet  the  expenditures  we  must  have  direct 
taxes.  The  sum  of  the  direct  taxes  will  be  measured  by  the 
efficiency  and  econom.y  which  we  bring  into  the  administra- 
tion of  the  State. 

Our  very  alert  and  business-like  State  Comptroller,  Mr. 
Eugene  M.  Travis,  has  done  much  good  work  in  raising  the 
State's  infiow  of  revenue.  He  has  gone  into  fields  neglected 
by  former  incumbents  of  the  office  and  found  new  income. 
-  His  work  on  the  stamp  transfer  tax,  the  inheritance  tax  and 
the  secured  debt  tax  has  shown  the  highest  efficiency  of  which 
there  is  any  record.  In  addition  he  has  caused  amendments 
to  the  tax  laws  which  will  average  about  $2,500,000  a  year 
increased  income,  but  there  even  his  administration  must  stop 
in  greater  part.  The  real  relief  must  come  in  economy  of  ex- 
penditure with  efficiency  of  administration  in  the  big  depart- 
ments discussed  in  detail  in  this  volume. 


9 


